Insanity is Colored White
by HayashiOkami
Summary: For two years Hayama Naoto battled with a guilt that would not leave him and a series of memories that haunted him. He gave up- but not for lack of trying. He met a boy in Tachikawa Mental Hospital that made half the time worthwhile.
1. Day One, a day of monochrome

_**Insanity is Colored White**_

_Life in a mental hospital is not kind. Demons of the past aren't kind either._

_Day__** One**_

The days and hours and minutes were forever. The whitewashed walls never changed. The beautiful, wild forest outside the institute's safety fled through the eternity in a blink of an eye. The semblance of normalcy they were so often allowed to appreciate was also their cage. The forest stretched for kilometers across the mountains, protecting those on the edge of and immersed in insanity. Whether it protected the world from the mentally ill or protected the mentally ill from the prejudiced world was debatable.

White was their world. The straightforward routine never deviated, the grey never seeped through the cracks and the black devoured them at night. Today, Naoto wrote. From one o' clock to two o' clock the pen itched across paper hardly without a pause. His hand cramped and sweat made the smooth metal slippery. The caretaker gently reminded him that he could take a break when he was tired. Naoto never stopped, as if possessed by a viral vermin beneath his skin that ate at the thin strings called a conscious. Naoto wrote as if he might not wake the next morning to continue.

The caretaker slipped the pen from his aching hand when an aide came inside to deliver a message. There was a phone call for him. It went without saying that it was his parents. No one else knew where Naoto had disappeared to after the rumors about the equipment room spread, not even his closest friends. They were too hesitant to ask his almost mute younger brother. Sometimes Naoto forgot he ever had friends. These days, Naoto forgot many things, not just his relationships with people. Then, of course, some memories never faded no matter how painful they were.

A gentle hand guided him from the chair across the room, sliding neatly past patients obediently bent over papers and disobediently ignoring any words of reason. Their soft murmurs were white noises he didn't understand any more than he understood English. The caretaker kindly reminded him that they were walking, not stopping, and pulled her compliant charge along. Not that Naoto was stupid or slow, but sometimes his mind wandered away from him, especially after he had been writing something particularly personal. The interrupted session brought his thoughts reeling back home all too fast.

The bright hallway was wide. Most rooms here were open for the claustrophobic patients and large carts to pass by. Everyone appeared small compared to the building no matter their size. Something about the establishment transcended contemporary norms. It could be that the very nature of the place made it different from the outside world. This was where society's unwanted children were stowed away because it was inhumane to throw them in prison. Though, Naoto thought the "hospital" was a different type of prison. Their rooms had locks to protect them from the violent cases and they lived on a mandated, mundane schedule.

People often went insane in here, too. The occurrence was common and chaotic, but there existed a routine for such events as well. The first time had startled him from his reverie but since then he barely skipped a heartbeat when the telltale sounds echoed down the hallway. Patients often had little sympathy for each other. Everyone here was miserable in their own ways and none too eager to make friends or socialize outside of therapy sessions where the caretakers required it. Knowing that other people as deranged as him existed should have comforted him a little, but Naoto found disgust and disdain instead.

The lady stood off to the side to give him a small sense of privacy as an assistant handed him the cordless phone. The patients weren't allowed to be left alone anywhere except their rooms and some might even try to commit suicide given the chance. Not that Naoto could ever see himself doing such a cowardly thing as ending his own life. For what he'd done, he had to be punished properly and if suffering in this halfway house forever meant repenting for his sins, he wouldn't seek an escape.

At least, that was his train of thought for the moment. Whether or not it was the medication talking, Naoto didn't always feel so resigned and accepting. Sometimes he was bitter and harbored unbearably cruel thoughts. Other times he smiled and pretended his room wasn't his cell and that he wasn't a prisoner here for life. When he was lucid he was aware that his condition wasn't something he could easily move past. Even the therapy might never heal his mind. The urges were always lurking back there no matter how hard he protested.

"Hi, mom, dad," Naoto said softly into the receiver. A faint smile crossed his lips, the same sort he normally used around his parents, except now the happiness behind it was gone and the gesture felt empty. He listened as they asked about his health and updated him on a life that was no longer his. Considering that they rarely called, Naoto forced himself to respond and enjoy the familiar voices. As the weeks passed it seemed harder and harder a task. "The people here are nice. I'm fine, really I am. I'm studying, don't worry. It gives me something to do."

Studies in high school had been all-important and the minute he stepped foot in the hospital, all of that effort simply washed away. Others might think it would be a good thing to be free of the responsibility and pressure, but that wasn't true because Naoto didn't _have_ a future anymore. All because he couldn't control himself and listened to that ugly desire in his chest.

"Hey, dad…can I talk to him, just to say hello? I promise I won't say anything bad…" Before his pleas even left his mouth Naoto knew he would be denied the only request he wanted granted. The caretaker moved from her spot and placed a firm hand on his arm to remind him that he didn't have that privilege. His eyes flickered and lowered in disappointment and his heart lurched. He didn't even deserve to speak to his younger brother, who was afraid of him underneath his mask. "Never mind just…how's he doing? Is he alright?"

His father spoke briefly and handed the phone to his mother, uncomfortable with the sudden change in subject. Naoto scowled on the other end even though his caretaker took note of his behavior to bring up in their next therapy session. If his father dismissed his brother then he had no chance of asking his mother. He sucked in a deep breath and placed another strained smile on his face, knowing that she always heard it in his voice. Of all the details to notice about her son, his mother chose the worst nuances. Any worry for his brother flew straight over her head as they spoke in cordial tones.

Each time he returned the phone to its cradle he understood what a broken record felt like. Time moved outside these walls; his parents told him different stories every phone call and he grasped onto them as if they were his lifeline. Not that his parents had anything truly interesting to offer him. He could care less about the fairs the middle schools held or the new stores that opened in the shopping district. But when time was stagnant within the mental hospital all those details kept his (relative) sanity alive for another day. Those days melded into one another until Naoto was not quite sure if the past week had been a dream.

Even the memories of his little brother were either faded or tainted, and he clung to these fragments with the desperation of a dying man. If these featureless walls stole the last things that made him human, he might as well become a dying man. The others sometimes whispered rumors about those people, the ones committed for life, the ones who were no longer considered human by even the other patients. They clung to something in order to keep their sanity. For most memories were enough; for some physical objects were their anchors. The caretakers tried to ensure that they kept these vital little things alive.

Hitomi, his attending nurse of sorts, directed him down the hallway and past the recreation rooms where most patients spent their spare time. Around the same time every day she liked to complete her chores around his room while he told her stories about his little brother. That was a pleasant part of his therapy when they didn't force him to recall the grim memories, as they sometimes did out of necessity. _Remembering the good alone doesn't cure wounds_, they told him when he was difficult. _Don't you want to see your brother again and say you're sorry?_

That was his desperate wish, so Naoto stayed obedient when his mind allowed him. There were days when that wish alone could not stop his thoughts, but as his stay here lengthened those urges were few and far between. Besides, no matter how his mind felt on a particular day it always had little problem discussing his brother. Hitomi was either an inspiring actress or genuinely pleased and amused with his stories. With Naoto's words he supposed that even his brother's badly articulated antics were charming to others. Before, only Naoto had patience and attention for them. He smiled at the fond memories as the door swung open.

Each patient had the same basic room. Depending on their mental state, the staff's observations on behavior, and their families, some were personalized to a degree. Naoto had never seen anyone else's room, but according to Hitomi most patients changed the position of the furniture. Though they allowed him to bring some personal items he kept most stored in his bag, too afraid to taint his old memories with the new. That was well enough because the staff didn't want him to keep a picture of his brother around all the time. Sometimes they allowed him to pull that frame out and he cherished the seconds for as long as possible.

Of course, he understood why they isolated him from his brother's image. Those urges might return more frequently if he were allowed access to it at all hours. As a consequence, there were no pictures in his room. When he kept was a trinket or two and his favorite books. The patients were not always required to wear the hospital's outfit so he had some clothes around too. The plain button-up and sweatpants made him feel rather inactive, as if he were going to bed at all hours of the day. Though while outside they were permitted to participate in any sports the place had equipment for, Naoto had not yet done so.

Hitomi collected the laundry hamper as he crossed the room and sat on his bed. The sheets were white like the rest of the place, always smelling of clean detergent. The hospital washed them often, so that airy smell had become a normal, familiar scent. Naoto shifted aside as the woman pulled the sheets away from the mattress and bundled them up in her arms. She paused to stare at him expectantly and he flashed a pleasant smile. Today was very normal, very routine as always.

"What subjects does your little brother like?" Hitomi started after a moment. With twelve years of memories Naoto still sometimes didn't know what to say. How could he tell how delightful and kind his little brother was to a stranger with just words? Hitomi always knew what to ask, what prompted him into nonstop chatter. The little details counted the most.

"Well, he's not very good with words. I've told you that, right? So he doesn't like reading and writing- language arts- that much. He asked me to help him with his homework so many times I thought he was trying to get me to take the class for him!" Naoto breathed a light chuckle. His little brother had vehemently denied it while flustered and afterwards he tried a little harder to finish the assignments on his own. "But he works hard even though he's not very good at it. He likes math and science better. There aren't so many words there. And he doesn't like gym class."

"In other words, the opposite of Naoto-san," Hitomi said with a thoughtful nod to herself and a pleasant smile. She disappeared for a moment to return with fresh sheets and asked him to help her reassemble the bed. Naoto gladly took the fabric, his limbs and muscles itching for movement. While he shoved the pillow into its case Hitomi paused to speak again, this time in a different tone. "We don't talk about you much. What subjects do you like?"

Naoto stopped for a moment, the soft material between his fingers. He stared down at the white and considered it. Talking about himself, even if it was his likes and dislikes…it made him painfully aware of his faults and devastating mistakes that landed him here. Because he knew that once he started, there _were_ no faults that he could find in himself. Everything suddenly became very black and white. But if this was part of the healing process, then he had to swallow his hesitation and speak. Speaking was something Naoto used to be very good at.

"I love sports even though I have a weak heart. It's just a matter of training yourself so even if you have something like a heart disease or asthma, playing what you enjoy is okay…Everyone in school always asked if I wanted to play professional, but I don't. Unlike my brother, I like the arts. Philosophies and religions fascinate me; I always liked the complex better than the straightforward. And I enjoyed school, being able to do things and move around," he said with a small, wistful smile, hands folded neatly in his lap.

Hitomi had a pleased smile on her face while she folded the old sheets that were not really dirty into the rolling hamper. Naoto waved as she departed for the laundry then padded over to the desk with his useless schoolbooks and novels borrowed from the library. Mental insanity was no excuse to stop enriching the mind. He picked a battered, page-worn red paperback from the thin pile and peeled back the cover with the thin, fading green characters, _Norwegian Wood_. Sliding onto the desk chair, Naoto settled in for the evening behind barred windows, encased in the shadow of a broad-branched fir.

The dappled patterns over the linoleum floor were a watery golden orange when the soft chime over the speakers in the hallway signaled dinner. Naoto's eyes flickered away from the wrinkled pages and he set the book aside for tomorrow afternoon. Dinner in the cafeteria was another routine, one the institute tried to keep as normal as possible by trusting the patients to behave themselves. Outsiders might even assume this were someplace normal by glancing into the large, fluorescent-lit room filled with a clattered din.

If it weren't for the situation, Naoto might actually have found his meal tasteful. The days his parents reminded him of the life and activity he couldn't have, the fish or meat tasted even blander than plain white rice. He picked at the vegetables and held the bowl disinterestedly in his other hand, stomach empty but the food tasteless on his tongue. No one asked about his despondency. Everyone had their moments and days when the toll of their circumstances pierced the false contentment on their faces and not one of them was immune.

That night he curled underneath the fresh sheets and pushed the faint memories of his brother away with tired, transparent hands. When he couldn't find sleep he gazed at the inky shadows swaying across the floor and his body until the strain from peering past the darkness into a night robbed of stars exhausted him into unconsciousness.

"_I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for._" (Haruki Murakami,_ the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_)

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><p>• I don't quite know what it says of me as a person, but I always wanted to know more about Takumi's brother than what they revealed in the manga or movie, and enjoyed writing this. It's a sad story that if anything, will have some happy points before it inevitably ends in death. I hope by the end you readers will walk away with a different side to the story. For a change of pace, my quotes come from one of two famous Japanese authors: Haruki Murakami and Dazai Osamu (author of <em>No Longer Human<em>).

• This story corresponds with my other Takumi-kun story _What We Were, What We Want to Be_. It takes place over two years right up until Naoto dies. Please note that the _Day One, Day Two, etc._ does not necessarily mean that these events occurred back-to-back. There is going to be a large time gap between them. Originally these were entries to the journal Naoto writes for therapy, but I can't write in first person so it's set up as third person, which is why the chapters will probably be so short.

• Hitomi is the name I gave to the nurse who talks to Takumi. _Norwegian Wood_ is the name of the novel that made Murakami famous. It originally came as a package of two, one red and one green book. I'm not sure which is meant to be read first.


	2. Day Two, a day of realizations

_**Insanity is Colored White**_

_Day __**Two**_

Rain pelted the pristine glass windows and sodden ground three flights beneath his feet. Little distorted pearls clung to the panes and slipped down the surface leaving a feeble trail in their wake. An overcast grey sky rumbled in ear-shattering volumes above the institution, sharp flashes racing across the land and the groan of great trees on the wind. If before he wondered at the fearsome might of thunderstorms in the far off distance as a curious child, he now knew that their source of power was hidden deep in the mountains where they were free to roam.

On occasion the building shivered in an aftershock and his hand trembled on the windowsill. Morbid curiosity filled him as his fingers tingled. How would an earthquake affect a building so high in the mountains? Every now and again all of Japan rumbled from the quakes out in the Pacific, but if a true earthquake were to hit he wondered if it might be worse in isolation. No power and no hope of power any time soon; live earth beneath their feet and looming trees all around, untouched and unburdened by man and his chemicals and axe. His parents might worry.

A soft, barely heard knock broke through his concentration and the door yielded to Hitomi's thin figure with a smile plastered on her face. She beckoned and a single glance at the clock revealed all about the situation, more than any person's words could describe. He slipped his shoes on and followed the caretaker into the hallway, eyes stinging at the bright contrast from his darkened room. The natural grey that washed over the floor was much preferred to the unnatural white lighting the fixtures offered. The warm yellow glow was in other rooms, where relaxation was the intention.

Their rooms were meant for quiet reflection and dream yielding sleep.

Hitomi stepped inside the elevator and held the door for his entrance. She pressed the button for the second floor, the dreaded floor in some cases. The contraption lurched and his stomach with it as they arrived. They stepped out into another whitewashed hallway lined with metal doors with little glass panes and locked doorknobs. Caretakers and interns and doctors passed with brief greetings. He'd seen them plenty of times before, never cared to know more than their faces, and responded with a pleasant smile all the same. Sometimes the reason behind his effort baffled him.

Hitomi slid her key into a locked door, as everything was done in the hospital, and stepped inside with him with another greeting. His doctor stood in the center with a clipboard and a tray on the exam table, which he pointedly ignored. The man was fairly old, should be retired by now really, but had simply retreated into the mountains and continued his work here rather than give up his career. At least, that was what Hitomi had told him and he had little reason to doubt her. Dr. Sasaki had once had a reserved, all-business countenance but working in an environment where everyone was either overly emotional or more emotionally detached than a rock had changed him.

"You haven't been feeling too well lately?" Dr. Sasaki inquired as he motioned for him to take a seat. Sometime during his musings Hitomi had left him alone, and would return in twenty minutes. As he slid onto the biting cold metal his eyes inadvertently trailed off to the tray the doctor's hand went towards. The man picked up a small amber bottle and ripped open a fresh syringe inside a plastic bag. The tender skin on the inside of his elbow already itched in anticipation.

"I've just been tired lately," Naoto said though it wasn't quite the truth. He still had enough of his mind to recall how the body screamed in a satisfying agony when it was _actually_ fatigued. The doctor nodded and lifted his arm, the syringe with its deadly thin tip dripping small droplets of medication on the tray. He wrapped a band of rubber around his arm and tightened it until the pressure passed the uncomfortable stage and took up the needle. Naoto took in a deep breath and when he exhaled the ordeal was over. Except for the prick, he hadn't felt anything.

It was a psychological fear, he decided weeks ago. The knowledge that a small yet extremely effective amount of drugs was entering his bloodstream unsettled the mind.

"My heart aches sometimes," he admitted as Dr. Sasaki disposed of the needle. The man gave him a sharp look that demanded the reason why that was not the first thing out of his mouth. Naoto shrugged and unbuttoned his shirt as the man expected of him. The normal tanned complexion on his skin had faded; his own body was foreign to him now. He had no state of mind to care about the muscle he had once attained through careful exercise. The stamina everyone once praised him for had gone, too.

The doctor placed the cold stethoscope above his heart, across his chest, his back, and pressed two gloved fingers against the vulnerable underside of his jaw. He frowned and made a few scattered notes in his file. "There's nothing wrong with your heart that I can tell now. Stop by every other day for two weeks just to be sure." Dr. Sasaki muddled about his cabinets as Naoto slipped his shirt back on and carefully redid the buttons. The cold splotches where the metal had touched him still tingled.

"I'm almost certain it's purely psychological, though. Moving here as a permanent patient is a difficult process to adjust to," Dr. Sasaki said. He left unsaid that the transition was much harder on the recipient if they had little to no contact with their former lives. Naoto had known all along that the ache in his chest had been of a completely different type than the pains inflicted by his heart disease. His illness had never made him so helpless and isolated, not even when he had been hospitalized as a child.

"Don't stress yourself too much in your therapy. I'll remind them it isn't good for your heart, especially at this stage. And, I may not be a therapist but Hayama-kun," Dr. Sasaki said, his wrinkled old eyes staring at the younger boy. "The science I believe in may not have an explanation, but I've seen it too many times to deny it; there's a strange strength in friendship and love. With it, people pull through the most hopeless situations. Keep that in mind."

The therapists had been repeating the same mantra since his arrival, urging him to socialize and open the heart he had learnt to fear for other people to examine. They warned against any of his previous behavior, but they didn't understand how hard it was to resist those urges despite how precious or worthless the recipient was. Naoto couldn't hurt another friend or another perfect stranger. He graced the doctor with a smile of acceptance though his insides churned and his resolve strengthened at the thought. It was a smile that didn't convince anyone, the strained types he seemed to wear more and more often.

"Dr. Sasaki," Naoto said suddenly, some faraway thought having returned to him with a remarkable, frightening clarity. The pinprick of red itched underneath his blunt fingernails and the doctor moved to find the bandage he'd forgotten in his talk, muttering apologies as he shuffled through drawers. That wasn't what Naoto meant. "The therapists said I have…narcissism. But if I'm not remembering wrong, you can't treat narcissism with medication, right? Then what're these shots for? Are they just…placebos or something? Is there really no way to cure me?"

The second session with the therapist had brought that personality disorder up, but Naoto couldn't grasp the concept as applying to himself. He understood what a narcissist was of course. As was the nature of his condition, he was often unaware that he had done anything wrong. The only hope he had held onto for these weeks trapped inside this prison was that the treatments and therapy would control those urges enough for him to function without being a threat to society. In his desperate desire for that small chance at redemption, at that hope that he might someday be able to apologize without being condescending, he'd forgotten that it was one of the few disorders unaffected by drugs.

The realization that these efforts were for naught struck him harder than being told he had a problem in the first place. A sickening film of bile formed in his throat but he kept his mouth clenched so tightly that his jaw began to ache. Dr. Sasaki had torn the protective covering off of a band-aid and pressed it against the puncture wound while he talked. He didn't look up for some time.

"They probably haven't covered this with you yet," the doctor sighed heavily, as if he were the bearer of bad news. Naoto stiffened; more problems he didn't have any notion of were just what he needed. "It's the reason you've been so tired lately, and your heart has been 'hurting'. They're not quite sure yet, whether or not it's clinical depression or just a phase of adjustment. In any case, you don't need to worry. The shot is just a mild relaxant, a sedative of sorts. In the days before you come here, Hitomi has said that you've been increasingly restless and irritable."

Naoto blinked. They believed he might be depressed. That he might consider suicide was an absurd concept to him. The past few nights sleep had eluded him and he _did_ run a short temper but he had attributed that to his parents' calls. The tantalizing images of a life- one that had once been his- always stirred uneasy emotions in him. The bitterness at hearing such things had always gone with the visits to the doctor, but Naoto had never stopped to consider that those feelings had nothing to do with narcissism. He'd just _assumed_ the injections were for that disorder, the one that concerned him the most.

Society didn't scorn the depressed as much as it did narcissistic rapists, now did it? Naoto frowned; what kind of narcissist called himself a rapist? Maybe the depressed, guilty type did. Maybe being here did help, even if he could barely wrap his mind around it now.

Hitomi arrived a few minutes later, sent him outside to wait, and spoke with the doctor while he leaned against a pale wall and tossed the words around in his head. She emerged shortly and gave him another of her unchanging smiles, and together they headed further down the hall for group therapy. Naoto winced at the prospect of the next one or two hours. As if speaking about his problems wasn't enough, he had to reveal it to these perfect strangers and care about _their_ issues too. These group sessions occurred every now and again, not that he kept track anymore. He was sure that they ran on a specific schedule, too.

The woman left him at the door to the large room with the couches and chairs and awkward silences. They almost always stuck him into groups with similar disorders, so he supposed that they'd start sending him to sessions with depressed patients next. Beyond the door with its metallic handle and small glass window were other creeps like him- molesters and rapists and everyone unable to control their desires. For obvious reasons they sat apart from each other. Naoto sucked in a deep breath and stepped inside.

Some familiar faces were wandering the room on restless feet already. Others were slouched in chairs, some talking quietly with one another. Naoto picked a seat apart from anyone else, but not too obvious as to his antisocial tendency. Today was a good day, he decided as he allowed his shoulders to slouch and relaxed into the plastic chair. Today he didn't straighten his posture and assume himself better than anyone else here. Today he was quite aware as to who they were and who he was. It didn't bother him that the other patients strutted around the room with high chins and hardened, superior eyes.

When they were all trapped within these whitewashed walls pride started to melt away into an entirely different substance.

The two regular therapists for this group- Takeda and Kobayashi- walked in as the last stream of stragglers trickled inside. Everyone took what places they pleased and the low hum of chatter lapsed into silence. Most sessions were gender inclusive with the exception of Takeda. The pure male dominance that filled the room didn't unnerve the female in the slightest, and Naoto had figured over time that most would rather cross Kobayashi than her. He still hadn't figured out why everyone stayed well away from her, but wasn't too willing to find out.

This round had brought new two patients transferred from another group, an event that happened often enough. The influx of additions to the hospital was an extremely low number; Naoto had been the first in nearly a year. Understanding the marginal difference between him and the others, he had opted to keep to himself within the first week. Everyone knew him as 'narcissistic' anyways, so it wasn't much of a stretch to assume that he thought he was 'too good' to talk with them. Inside these walls, few bothered each other about trivial things like that. There were worst disorders than narcissism.

"Alright, since Ueda-kun and Watanabe-san have joined us, we should welcome them," Takeda said in that optimistic voice of hers that left no open room for argument. Some, Naoto included, grumbled at her words, not that the system had changed in the last three weeks. Whenever they received new members they all retold their individual stories in order to prove that yes, they had no choice whatsoever in revealing their darkest secrets. Not that anyone had secrets in this place anymore.

They made progress around the circle and the nerves in his stomach tightened and strangled themselves in an effort to end this prematurely. A few of the guys looked almost _bored_ when they spoke and nearly all of them paid zero attention to each other's stories. There were some Naoto had never heard before from lack of attention, so he listened with half an ear in morbid curiosity.

Fujiwara Hiroki was a decent salary man unable to be tried for the attempted murder of his wife and two other women, on the basis of tampered evidence. Most men spoke the empty words with little shame, a simple mantra that held no meaning and no bearing on their future actions. If not for Takeda's hardened stare, Fujiwara might have attempted to laugh the matter off. Naoto saw the corners of his lips twitch upwards as he lowered his eyes, not from shame, but to hide his utter elation at escaping prison. The deep churning in his stomach intensified and his hands clenched into fists.

Murder was a sin. Every person in this room with the exception of the doctors- unless they, too had dark secrets they would rather keep hidden- were sinners for viewing themselves as superior at one point in their lives. Not just 'superior' in the simple sense of the word either, Naoto considered. Everyone felt self-confidence at some point in their lives. No, their egos had overtaken their senses and humanity, had emerged as some deadlier beast and wounded others and perhaps taken joy from the act.

"I'm Hayama Naoto; it's a pleasure…" he said with a small incline of his head. He admitted his crime without the shame that broiled beneath his skin, well-adapted to the cold resolve the others used. "I'm here for chronically assaulting the underclassmen in my high school, and for abusing my younger brother since we were young."

Incest was also a sin. These were flowery words for the simple truth, words that gave off an illusion of grandeur. There would never be words for the terrible, wretched grimaces of betrayal on his little brother's face or his sweet, heart-wrenching cries or the innocent trust and adoration behind his eyes that slowly faded over the years.

The procession had long advanced without his knowledge, the experiences forcing his own to pale in comparison. They were almost reassuring. He hadn't tried to kill anyone. He hadn't burnt down buildings or destroyed families by tearing their foundations apart. He hadn't tortured anyone or played intricate mind games with them. Though in essence, he _had_ destroyed his family, hadn't he? Or was that not his fault? It couldn't be his entire fault. But for the life of him, Hayama Naoto could not imagine anyone else having damaged his family more than himself, if he thought with a moment of clarity.

Maybe if his little brother had satisfied him-

"Hayama-kun," said a voice from beyond his realm of consciousness. Naoto started so badly that he slipped from his chair, banged his head against the hard plastic next to him, and landed in a heap of limbs and metal. Dazed for a moment, he glanced around and saw that everyone had left already. The clock said that an hour and a half had elapsed. Kobayashi entered his field of vision and offered a helping hand, mildly worried and amused. "I didn't mean to give you such a scare. You've haven't been here this entire session. Oh, Dr. Sasaki told me what happened today."

"I'm sorry," Naoto answered automatically. Society had engraved that reflex into them as children, so even if the phrase held no truth to it, he was not in the wrong for having apologized. Everyone had always accepted his- from his parents to his teachers to his little brother. Things went away if he said sorry- until he came here. Word stopped having such weight to them anymore.

"No, it's alright. Perhaps this isn't the best kind of therapy for you, though you've been diagnosed with narcissism. Takeda-san and I have been talking it over and thought you should transfer- would one-on-one with another patient bother you too much?" Unlike Takeda, Kobayashi's voice rarely held the same intensity that demanded obedience. His respect had been earned in different ways, and he always sounded easy-to-reach. He was a mortal man, not unobtainable and never superior. Maybe that was why he worked in this department.

Still, no matter how agreeable and painless Kobayashi's voice was, he was still within the institute's walls where refusal did not exist. Naoto pushed himself to his feet and shook his head though he inwardly protested. He graced the man with a thin smile and accepted the information in stride. His next session would be with Sato and her marginally smaller group that didn't just know each other's crimes, but their fears and their once-hopes and dreams as well. He'd have to befriend someone, reveal all of those insecurities that had overwhelmed him not so long ago.

And he would have to help them through whatever sins or tragedies they had gone through, too.

But first he had to think- think about that 'depression' the doctor had spoken of and consider if it really _was_ depression. He had been acting dismal, but who didn't feel oppressed behind these walls in the middle of a land inhabited by nature's beasts and beauties? Such sights could never be theirs to cherish with someone important. They could only look through a window and dream, and today that window was foggy with endless pellets of water striking its surface.

"_Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting_" (Haruki Murakami).

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><p>• I haven't gotten a chance to read this over for mistakes yet, so if you spot inconsistencies or errors please tell me. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking for me too and when school starts I'll have less time for writing. I'll still update of course, especially this story, since the chapters are so short.<p>

• Naoto is only partially diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, since he is able to feel remorse. A regular narcissist/sociopath would probably still see little fault in their actions. There is another underlying reason for his actions besides mental insanity, trust me.

• I am so sorry Takumi, but those words just slipped out of your brother's mouth. D: I don't think anything at the time, short of being drastic, could have sated Naoto. Oh, no first names in this because they aren't important, per say. Naoto as a patient would never call the doctors by their first name (unless something weird was going on there...).


	3. Day Three, a day of meetings

_**Insanity is Colored White**_

_Day__** Three**_

The storm had become a light drizzle with thin bars of sunshine edging away from the dismal clouds. The common room's wide-arched windows had their heavy curtains drawn aside and the overhead lights were turned off in wake of the relatively sunny afternoon. Most patients were edgy with the change in weather, their tempers and tolerance much shorter than when the thunder and lightning had shattered the sky during the past two days. They drifted about neither here nor there in search of something constructive to occupy their time. At least, they _tried_ to find something that even skimmed the definition of constructive, as most activities here were time-occupying but pointless.

He gave in to Hitomi's suggestion that he stay away from his room during the waking hours, but the change in location did not affect his mood or reading comprehension. It was an easy task to block out distracting noises and concentrate solely on Murakami's words, which Naoto had grown some fondness of as he flipped through the pages of another novel. It baffled him as to why a hospital for the mentally ill contained such morally depressing books, filled to the margins with borderline suicidal thoughts and a variety of sins.

He supposed that not even this institution could avoid the influx of interest the young people of today had in these genres. He couldn't relate with many of the situations described in the books, at least not outright, but he did suppose that he shared that emptiness found in an unfulfilling life. If these novels were meant to instill inspiration, Naoto hadn't found it yet. He tried to convince himself that he would never find it no matter how hard he scoured the sentences, and flipped the pages for the pure enjoyment of reading about someone else's miserable life.

There was a pause in the chapter; his fingers hovered to turn the page and fell down a moment later. A few single notes broke the murmuring din in the common room, sweet but unconnected and meaningless. Naoto's head swiveled to the space behind the couch he was currently curled upon and found someone at the old battered piano he had thought was a broken decoration. It was a patient- a man maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. The wood, though dulled by disuse, had been swept of the dust layered on it.

A musical trill expanded into the air as the man's fingers danced across the ivory keys, slow at first, and increasingly faster as his muscles became adjusted to the motions once more. He stayed away from the haunting melodies that sounded so beautiful on the piano, and most of the classics he must have in his repertoire. It was understandable, as no one enjoyed being reminded of their misery, but Naoto had a pained feeling that seized his chest anyways. He had never been too musically inclined. As a child he did not have the breath for wind instruments, and in later years his attention had turned towards different areas.

Music belonged to his little brother, after all. Whenever Naoto had asked his parents to listen, they were impressed and praised their youngest son, and teased him about how he had never succeeded in any instrument himself. It made him fluster in embarrassment, but that had been a good sort of embarrassment he didn't mind. For five minutes he could recline against the couch or a chair and close his eyes and not have to worry about setting expectations. And when he opened his eyes that overjoyed smile entered his vision, happy for the warm words their parents had said or the small pat on the shoulder or head.

Somehow, he could live without the sports that had made the blood in his veins alive. He could live with the knowledge that his friends weren't quite "friends" after all and that he had no future ahead of him. What he didn't think he could live without were the simple memories behind the melodic notes in the room around him. Five, ten years along the road he would still be here and if they ever released him there was absolutely no chance that his brother would want to see him. No one in their right mind would agree to his request, however simple "I want to see you one more time" sounded.

Not that he had another choice in the matter, as everything in his life seemed to have shaped up to be. Naoto did not relish in the thought of dying so young, ignorant and unaccomplished as he was today reclining against the worn couch in the common room. Murakami's book had fallen open to a random page in the angle formed by his curled legs and stomach. There existed no other sounds besides his light breaths whistling in his lungs and the music floating across the room on air conditioned breezes. It was a world he had not realized he'd missed until the first notes hit his ears.

The gentle melodies relaxed his tense muscles so much that he drifted asleep without remembering any sort of transition in between. When he next opened his eyes the watery light filtered through the arched windows had turned into a fiery golden ocean and the occupants had changed. The music was gone but the notes lingered in his head, embedded somewhere in his subconscious. As his blinked away the blurred reality of sleep, the music faded and he was left with the present. His legs had fallen and someone kindly set aside the book that had been displaced from his person.

His eyes searched the room until they landed on the clock above the far doorway. No wonder why he had woken up, he thought wryly. Therapy sessions were always scheduled at the same times if the staff could help it. They wanted routine and order; it was easy to control someone conditioned to the hands on the clock rather than to give them reason to every action and change. Today would normally have been group therapy, but he remembered the switch the doctors had done last time and stretched out with a deep sigh. It was time to find Sato and her group of patients.

The descended the stairs and emerged into the second floor offices and rooms, name plates only on the doctors' examination rooms. The therapy sessions often switched around due to some malfunction or another, so those were unlabeled on the right side of the hall. He peered through the narrow windows on the doors feeling infinitely silly, straightening as soon as he caught a glimpse of someone further down. He was five minutes late by now; that internal clock must not have been fully developed yet. The uncomfortable urgency made his feet quick and his mind rushed. Being late was a great first impression.

When he did arrive around the corner, second door on the right, the embarrassment rushed to his face and fled just as quickly. A few curious heads turned at the sound of the door, but no one berated him for his tardiness. Patients were paired up with the occasional group of three, an older woman walking between groups and leaning over shoulders as she went. Someone pointed out his awkward presence by the door and she waved him over with an open face and friendly arms. She was decidedly very different from her reserved colleagues in that first glance.

"Hayama Naoto; you came from group therapy, correct?" He nodded and lifted his feet over to the center where the woman had moved. The others must have been briefed on his arrival, because no one looked too surprised. To _Naoto's_ surprise, they seemed rather interested in him before he had spoken a word. He did suppose that they might find his story amusing, unlike in his previous session where they had been desensitized to nearly every criminal offense committed. He had to remind himself that the patients here were not all necessarily criminals.

"Would you care to tell us a little about yourself? It doesn't have to be much." Naoto glanced about the room, feeling the foreign sense of self-consciousness. Speaking had never been this difficult for him. He waved a hand towards a chair and sent Sato a questioning glance. At her approval, he pulled one over to the relative center of the group and rustled through his mind. First impressions were worth pondering over.

Finally he started with a slight nod of his head and, "I'm Hayama Naoto, it's a pleasure. I suppose all that really matters are two things: I'm a narcissist and the doctors have been saying I'm depressed, and I'm here because I hurt my little brother and the underclassmen at my high school." It was an abridged version from what he gave at the group therapy session, yet somehow the words would not come out with ease or detachment. Though he managed to regulate his tone, he had struggled with those simple words. Perhaps it was the close environment and sense of personality that had thrown him off.

Sato gave a small smile and waved the others away to whatever they were discussing before. She pulled a chair over next to him, the thick atmosphere in the air gone as the room returned to a chattering din. Naoto observed the soft features on her face and spotted the reprimand before the words came out of her mouth. She was not cruel or judgmental as she spoke. "I know they teach you to talk like that in those sessions, but I don't like it very much. It's no use talking about your problems if all you're doing is distancing yourself from them, is my belief.

"It doesn't have to be instantaneous, but I heard from Hitomi-san that you're quite a social person, so I don't think it'll be that hard to open up more. Don't afraid to feel emotional about things that make you mad or happy or sad. What your partner's here for is to listen and be a sort of unofficial therapist for you, and you in return should give him your support." Sato gave a sharp, confident nod and pushed herself from the chair, swinging around the room until she stopped at a corner. She motioned to the group of three boys. "One of them over there's your partner. Go introduce yourself again."

Naoto walked over, trying to figure out who she meant before he stopped, but the three boys seemed close enough that he couldn't distinguish between the two closer ones and the one out-of-place guy. That was part of her plan, he guessed as he paused at the corner, his back exposed to the wide room and his eyes unable to see anything except for these three people and the pale beige of the walls. They each waved him over with smiles and two broke away from their spots, getting up and disappearing from his peripheral vision.

The remaining boy was around his age, unhealthily thin for his height with sharp angles protruding from every feature except for his face. It retained enough of that roundness from childhood to soften the harsh image. Naoto forgot his manners for a moment before he returned the gesture and took a seat across from him, the natural charisma in his movements apparently making the boy self-conscious about his slouched posture. His previous position had been relaxed and informal, legs folded on the chair, one arm thrown over the opposite knee. Now he gathered his limbs together and threw him a crooked grin.

"Sato-san is a lot different, huh? The therapists like to toss us around like that," he said with a disgruntled grimace. Naoto sent him a questioning look but received no answer, not that he expected one to be truthful. People were ambiguous for almost no reason at all here. At least this guy smiled. "So anyways, I'm Ishikawa, Ishikawa Rakuto. That's written with the characters for "calm" and "person". I'm eighteen, and I'm from Kyoto, but my family moved to Tokyo a few years ago. I've been here for a year or so now."

Naoto nodded, the information filtering through his brain for any hint as to what he should say. If the teacher expected nothing but small talk, he was more than capable of holding his own for hours, but he was under the impression that the whole reason behind these sessions was discuss their issues. Ishikawa seemed unconcerned about their blaringly obvious location, a silly grin still plastered on his face. He fixed him with an unblinking stare, patient, idly kicking his feet back and forth. Naoto reminded himself that this guy was eighteen, a year older, and so much more immature.

"I come from Shizuoka," he finally started with, having run through an extensive list of possibilities and falling short as he had been doing lately. He continued to offer an explanation: placing him somewhere in Shizuoka would have been a constant reminder to his parents and his brother, both a blatant shame and a heavy shadow of fear. A doctor had recommended Tachikawa and shortly after, they made the long drive one Saturday morning. "I guess I miss home," he added as an afterthought. He left unsaid what he truly missed, hoping that some day that ache would disappear.

"I miss mine, too. Well, I miss Kyoto more. Tokyo's nice and all, but it's the city and it's just…different, you know? I like running around, even though I'm not particularly good at any sports. And I always did badly in school," Ishikawa mentioned with a flippant wave. The motion unsettled Naoto, who until this point maintained his opinion that education should not stop for his condition, so long as he could still absorb something in that mind of his. Lessons filled those empty corners of his mind and kept him alert. Because he might never use that knowledge didn't mean he had to stop entirely.

"What about you? I've seen you around, reading books all the time. I don't have any patience for those; at least, I didn't used to. Nowadays I don't mind it so much; have to keep the hands busy, right?" Ishikawa rambled on and on in a similar manner for however long the session lasted. Though Naoto remained on the edge of the conversation almost the entire time, the reluctance didn't seem to bother his partner. They exchanged simple statements about their likes and dislikes, nothing too complicated. When Naoto had figured out that they were not expected to share anything important, he relaxed into the conversation with earnest.

He even managed to talk about his little brother without his thoughts straying into dangerous territory. By the end of the session he found that he hadn't learnt much about Ishikawa at all. If not for his blunder in the beginning, Naoto realized that his partner would not have known anything about him either. Sure, he now knew that Ishikawa liked cats better than dogs and sweets better than salty snacks, but that didn't tell him much about the boy as a whole. Those were random and uninteresting alone. The full-size portrait was beyond the horizon, invisible, untouchable for the moment.

Strangely, he found within himself curiosity to discover who was behind that cheerful face, all of the ghosts that lurked underneath the darkened shadows of his eyes. There was more to the character of Ishikawa Rakuto than the lazy student unable to focus on his work. He claimed mathematics was his only strong subject, and a class he might have gotten an average grade in if he paid any attention at all. Being a Japanese citizen able to admit this made for a perplexing thought. Ishikawa made it sound as if he had no ambitions in his earlier life.

But somehow Naoto could not envision this boy who, in such a dismal place was able to forget those demons for a time and smile, as a delinquent that found school impossibly dull; so impossibly dull that he had expected to scrape by his best subject. There was vivaciousness in those tired eyes that had not yet been washed away by the clock's regular schedule or the isolation living in these mountains caused. The facts did not add up.

He did find a content smile on his face when Ishikawa mentioned that they would have to meet throughout the week on their own accord. It was amazing how quickly his reluctance to befriend anyone here had melted away. Not that he really expected them to become friends any time soon, and maybe they would forever be acquaintances, but the doctor's skeptical words had truth in them.

Later that night he pushed aside the spiral bound notebook, the copy of _The Great Gatsby_ in Japanese, and folded his arms on the desk upon which he laid his head. During dinner the rain had broken, leaving behind little droplets on the windowpanes that bulged with dark distorted shapes. That was the scene that lay beyond the blinds and beyond that, the bent trees in a moaning symphony. For the first night in weeks he ignored those images, pushed them from the inside of his eyelids until he saw the watery amber lighting in the common room. Beyond the air conditionings' hum soft notes twirled around, forming both even melodies made by skilled hands and the drawn-out, alluring sirens from a young talent.

A tender pain in his arched back had grown uncomfortable. He tore his eyes open long enough to flick the desk light off and stumble the short distance to his bed where he fell among downy softness and cool sheets. The interruption had chased away most of the imagery, but the music lingered a moment longer.

Naoto wandered back towards his little brother, the memories blurred by time at first. An empty face stared back at him until he realized that those eyes were not meant for him; they stared at a space beyond his shoulder where he came to remember his parents had stood that day. He had given a short wave and "goodbye" and turned his back to enter the house, and never gave the car a second glance. Naoto screwed his eyes shut tighter than before, trying to chase that away with something more pleasant, but those memories would not come. If he tried to imagine a happy image, he received a haunting memory that filled him with a terrible desire.

Instead he opened his eyes, cleared his mind, and brought the fresh picture of Ishikawa Rakuto to the forefront. He saw the characters for _clear_ and _person_, and a younger version of the boy that struggled in school, whose parents might not have been proud when he dashed away to play outside. He tried to see the current Ishikawa with that quirky grin or welcoming smile, and remembered that he hated winter, and immediately placed an apologetic mask over his face when he found out that Naoto's birthday was in December.

He had no personal relation with Ishikawa and the staff's looming presence made sure he was aware that his previous behavior was not to be tolerated. Ishikawa was pleasant to look at, but childish in a way that unsettled him. He was cute, but older than Naoto; the image didn't quite fit to him. Naoto made it fit though.

He recalled how Ishikawa's hair curled around his face, a strand plastered at the corner of his upturned mouth until he brushed it away. Throughout their discussion he had been completely at ease, but Naoto formed a different picture in his mind. In a room with uncomfortable humid air his cheeks might flush. A thin sheen of sweat would form on his forehead and in the nape of his neck. He'd instinctively swallow a dry gulp if he rambled for too long

He knew what Naoto was here for, but made no judgments and had no inhibitions about talking to him. A few times he seemed as if he wanted to come closer and touch him on the shoulder like he had done with the other boys, but it hadn't made Naoto self-conscious. It was those thoughts, those safe thoughts the hospital had never restricted him from thinking that kept him sane. If he wandered too far off the beaten path, it was alright so long as he could never act upon any of those desires.

"_Chance encounters are what keep us going._" (Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore)

* * *

><p>• This is the same Ishikawa Rakuto from <em>What We Were<em>. "Rakuto" is written 楽人. The translating site says is means "clear person" and 人(to) means person. 楽(raku) is part of "rakuen" which is paradise so I suppose it's the right translation. It's an unusual name, which is why he introduced himself and gave how to write it as well. He was kind of named after the actor Tochihara Rakuto, who if you watch some BL movies, was in Junjou with Takahashi Yuta. Takahashi played Suzuki in the second Takumi-kun movie.

• Thus starts the long, complicated relationship between these two boys that in actuality was very short. Hopefully I'll be able to move away from this flowery type of writing, but Naoto strikes me as this type of person too.

• Mild reference to _Norwegian Wood_. Apparently the main character's favorite book was the _Great Gatsby_.


	4. Day Four, a night of disturbances

_**Insanity is Colored White**_

_Day__** Four**_

Today started last night if he wanted to be precise about the events that followed one unnamable mid-October week. Naoto had become acquainted with Ishikawa Rakuto for nearly half a month when this occurred. It was enough time to known enough details about another person as to give the illusion of familiarity without actually knowing the other at all. These days when Naoto was seen without a book or Ishikawa Rakuto the caretakers knew something was wrong. There were those days when the boys preferred solitude, which affected all patients at some time, but those had grown few and far between.

To say that Naoto had learnt nothing of value about his partner was a lie. People did not spend extended lengths of time with another without coming to learn _something_. For example, there were certain topics and words Ishikawa lost his composure around that Naoto had to be cautious of. Another was that the cheerful façade he wore slipped under pressure or intense discussions about subjects he had apparently once held passion for. Among the most important survival lessons were that sweets, particularly ice cream, and light platonic hugs worked like a magic cure for a majority of his moods.

Ishikawa grew into particularly dismal moods the later the nights wore on, with the autumn winds battering the windowpanes and muted activity inside disquieting the boy. During these long hours after dinner, Naoto had taken a shine to reading books aloud to him in the common room or in the solitude of their beds. After the first couple readings, Naoto had figured out that Ishikawa was not interested in the story and words themselves most of the time. His eyes often acquired a glazed over sheen that stared emptily at a wall or Naoto's hands flipping the pages, contented but uninterested.

This was a vastly different person than the boy he spoke to during the day and Naoto would be lying if he said it didn't bother him. He did accept it, however eerie Ishikawa was when he fell into that limp state, a mere ragdoll Naoto ventured he could have done anything do if he wanted. During these times he was incredibly compliant, and had to be ordered to bed or dragged through the hallways if their sessions ran late enough. But despite his new friend's peculiarities, Naoto made no move to change them- after all, his words had no effect on him. It was his voice that lulled Ishikawa further into that trance.

To his amazement, he hadn't once tried to take advantage of his friend, either. If this were before in the outside world, he would have already driven the boy away with frightful, betrayed tears in his eyes. He supposed it was somewhat due to the threats looming over his shoulder here. That empty loneliness was not a feeling he wanted to encounter anytime soon. To his dismay, it had little to do with revulsion at the thought of making his friend squirm in pain. If he admitted to his guilty pleasures, he would find that far more dirtied thoughts filled his mind than pure ones.

It made him wonder if he was getting better at all. Sure, he didn't act upon those desires, but that he imagined them and took them farther than conception meant _something_. Normal people didn't look at their dozing friend and have their hands twitch to touch those slightly parted lips, or harbor warmth in their belly at the thought of seeing his cheeks flustered with embarrassment and shame. Naoto fought the images away, gripping the thin book between his fingers harder as he tried to imagine a grove of cherry blossoms by the shore, pink- nearly white- petals drifting in the waves.

His voice trembled as he read, "Soon a snowstorm of blossoms would scatter innumerable petals into the water, flecking the surface with points of white…" Though Ishikawa stood perhaps a centimeter or two shorter than him, he always reclined against Naoto's shoulder, which gave off the appearance of someone much smaller than him. He was still unbearably thin; Naoto could trace the fine lines of his collarbone and ribs with a fingertip if he were allowed. From this higher view, he saw the boy's eyelashes flutter and assumed that he'd heard the slight nuance in his reading.

"…which the waves carried back to the shore," Naoto continued at his normal pace, voice controlled again. A finger flipped the page and he inhaled a deep, quiet breath. Focusing on the book at hand chased away those unsightly images more often than not, but today they didn't quite work. Unlike most works, Dazai's book didn't appeal to his sense of sight. He could hardly make out any pictures from this narrative, the sparse exceptions being things like cherry blossoms on a beach. The words instead appealed to emotions, and he took a second between sentences to wonder what this horribly depressing book was doing here.

Ishikawa shifted against him, pressing his face against Naoto's bony shoulder with a soft sigh. Naoto shivered and lost interest in the book at once; a tight feeling had gripped his chest, an emotion he so rarely experienced that for a moment he didn't know how to name it. In any case, this was not safe. He kept a firm control over his body as he moved, shifting Ishikawa into a position suitable to supporting him as they walked. He was not too eager. He feigned a yawn and rubbed his aching eyes before he nudged his friend.

Together they made their way from the common room to the hallway and down the walls lined with unlocked doors. No one stopped them or waved as they passed. He walked by Ishikawa's room without a second thought; his roommate was sometimes there and while he didn't mind the man's presence while he read, Naoto did not want an audience now. Not that he would do anything, he promised himself. Ishikawa was a genuinely nice guy as far as he could tell, and his only true friend here. He didn't deserve to be messed up or tainted and all Naoto wanted to do was feel these natural things in privacy.

Naoto flicked the switch on the wall and light flooded the room. He tossed the book on the desk and carefully laid his friend on his bed. When he had deposited his nearly sleeping burden, Naoto stood awkwardly in the center of the room. He had no desire to read more tonight and Ishikawa never had any interest in the material from the start. He was also looking at Naoto through half-lidded eyes blurred by sleepiness and a miasma he could not begin to understand. He looked appealing in a strange, cute way. No matter how many times he reminded himself, Naoto kept forgetting that Ishikawa was older.

With a depleted sigh he collapsed into the desk chair, watching as his friend shifted and curled up, hair obscuring his face. It would be easy to do one of two things now. Naoto knew he should not act upon either of those choices, especially not the one he had given in to with his brother. A heavy stone nestled in his throat and a light flush tinted his cheeks at the vulnerable sight. His hands gripped the chair's wooden underside until his fingers burned in pain. With desperation he had not been aware of before, he tried to ignore the heat in his stomach.

A thin hand grasped at the sheets, folds crinkling between his fingers. The boy mumbled something incoherent. Naoto remained in that stiff position for a long time, until he was quite sure that Ishikawa had fallen asleep. It was completely unprofessional to waltz over there and decide to share the space, though this was not exactly the workplace and that was _Naoto's_ bed. But he wouldn't, and _couldn't_, move from that spot, not when these impure thoughts rattled his brain every which way but the right direction. For his little brother's sake, if nothing else, Naoto would restrain himself.

It was incredibly hard to ignore certain feelings, though, no matter how much he protested. Ishikawa might never be the wiser, even if he woke. The boy had that uncanny ability to be present in body and follow every movement with his eyes, but be completely empty in mind. If Naoto dared touch him a bit- just to stroke his hair or run a light finger over his lips- he doubted his partner would remember it come morning. He could get off _right here_ and he was confident that the outcome would be the same.

To his incredible relief the moment it happened, some commotion outside hurtled his brain into curiosity and those desires faded into the dark corners where they belonged. The sounds of a struggle were muted no doubt, but in a place where nothing deviated from the normal schedule they sounded as loud as a siren. Naoto stepped outside and closed the door behind him; Ishikawa was in an unmovable state, unlikely to have woken up for such a noise. His urge for something different, something that deviated from every monotonous norm, made him follow the small crowd that trickled towards the staircases.

There was a girl there, he realized with a start. It was the first girl patient he had seen since entering this building. Sure, he knew that the women lived in the floor above, but had never seen any outside of the doctors and caretakers. It also happened to be the first truly violent person Naoto had encountered so far. Most patients were resigned to life here, and the violent cases were located somewhere else in the hospital. He had been living among relatively normal people, perhaps with some problems but none that were expressed in such an outward way.

"_I won't go!_" she shrieked as she flailed against two doctors' slackening grips, limbs flying this way and that, striking wherever they landed with the mercy of a cornered animal. He glanced over the scene, spotting Hitomi in the stairwell with a couple, another two doctors he had never seen before descending from the fourth floor, and a crowd of spectators. Some caretakers arrived and pushed them away, shooing patients back to their rooms, trying to restore order to a flaw in their perfect little system.

From the stairwell he heard a woman's voice cry, "Please Mayumi, calm down. Why don't you want to come home? We all miss you; please don't be like this!"

"Go back to your room." A caretaker appeared in his line of vision, pushing his shoulder away as she snapped at the others around him. Naoto backed off but like the rest, lingered at a further distance. A few guys were shaking their heads in confusion and he couldn't lie and say he understood the situation either. Who would willingly want to stay here, if given that precious choice to return home? True, Naoto would most likely decide to stay if given that option, for his brother's safety more than his persona preference. But he doubted that was the same case with this girl.

Within a few minutes the small girl had been dragged away kicking and hollering loud enough to wake the dead. He had to wonder whether or not Ishikawa had slept through _that_ as he wandered back the way he'd come. It was a pity he missed the event, even if its significance was barely worth one yen. Naoto had been successfully distracted, if nothing else; touching his sleeping roommate hardly crossed his mind as appealing while he twisted the doorknob to his unlocked room. The printed numbers at eye level read _314_.

Beyond the door he emerged to find that Ishikawa had indeed been stirred from his sleep by the commotion. The boy with clothes clinging loosely to his thin frame sat at the edge of his now mussed up bed. His knees were drawn tight against his chest, the fine curves of his spine protruding from his back in a gradual arch. Naoto smiled as Ishikawa's head tilted towards his direction. His urges were always quieter when the boy was awake and aware. Something was different, though. As he neared, Naoto noted with discerning clarity that his partner's eyes had a new gloss painted over them.

"Did you hear that? A girl was out there, yelling about how she doesn't want to go home. Odd, isn't it- don't you think everyone here would kill to leave?" Naoto's voice left room for good-natured humor and amusement as he shook his head. A playful smile graced his lips as he fell into place beside Ishikawa, immensely relieved that he hadn't done anything strange after all. Talking would be difficult had he gotten off on his friend's vulnerability, while said friend was sleeping right in front of him. God forbid if he had taken it a step further- perhaps sitting where he was seated now.

A small nod jerked Ishikawa's head but afterwards he was still. Naoto's smile faded into a frown as he leaned forward and peered past his hair. Maybe his friend wasn't as sober as he had believed. It was well past nine after all; he should have expected no less. There were the occasional nights when Ishikawa remained "sober" as Naoto had taken to naming his moods, but those were few and far between. Their day had to have been excellent for him to retain his pleasant demeanor in the dark hours. Oh well, Naoto shrugged.

"Do you want me to read some more? Or maybe we should just lay here. Think they'll let us sleep together?" Naoto mused to himself. He quite enjoyed those hours when the books were stacked in neat piles on his desk, the activity outside muted and the caretakers busy elsewhere. Some nights Ishikawa had the state of mind to converse with him in quiet undertones, and other nights they would just lay flat against the mattress, two nearly full-grown bodies pressed together on the tiny space. Hitomi always came to help Ishikawa to his room, even if the boy had been deep asleep.

_She should,_ he mused as he kicked off his shoes, _with me thinking about him like that_. Still, for one night a break would be nice. He admitted that he missed the comfort of a warm body against his without shame. At first he had taken the absence solemnly, as a punishment of sorts. Now he had relinquished some of those thought processes and simply strove for comfort on his behalf.

"Don't have…" Ishikawa mumbled before the pillow obscured his words. He had fallen and curled up again, Naoto's signal to take up his position on the opposite side. The seventeen year old arranged his limbs and ended up facing Ishikawa's hunched back. They were almost the same height upright, so Naoto could not see past his bony shoulder. The impersonal wall between them didn't allow him to relax until he'd gently pushed that shoulder towards him, urging his friend to lie on his back. He complied.

"…What's your family like, Naoto?" Ishikawa asked the ceiling. The lights were still on, but soon enough the staff would shut the main lines down for the night.

The question caught him off guard. Not that they never talked about their families, and in fact Naoto always mentioned his little brother, but he had never heard the question asked in such a solemn tone. He corrected his train of thought after a moment. Ishikawa had not used a solemn voice or outstanding curiosity. It was a simple question. Primary school often asked those types of questions: What is your family like? Where do you live? What do you like? What confused Naoto was hearing his own name there.

As far as he remembered, they hadn't crossed that line from casual acquaintances to friends able to call each other by their first names. A few sparse hours ago Ishikawa had asked him, "Hayama-kun, what book do _you_ want to read?" The only reason he used an informal honorific was because Naoto was technically a year his junior. Ishikawa Rakuto was always "Ishikawa-san".

He indulged in his friend's hanging question, however new the direction. "You know a lot about my little brother already. He's shy, but he's a good kid. I think you two would like each other. My mother stays at home and I've always been closer to her. My father is different; he believes in studying hard facts and less about sports. My mother's outgoing at home, and my father's not. In the workplace my father's really out there, but my mother isn't. But they've always been worried over my health, so I guess it's what brings them together at times."

"But they haven't come to visit," Ishikawa pointed out. The statement stung Naoto in the heart more than he wanted to admit, but he could tell from the boy's voice that he had not intended his words as injurious. If not for that absence of malice or the frail weakness beneath his skin and the utter helplessness of in thin form, Naoto wouldn't have let it slide. He clenched his fists and swallowed his irritation just as the lights flickered off, plunging the room into deep darkness. After a moment Ishikawa shifted, toes bumping into Naoto's legs and warm human breath enticingly close to his face.

"I guess they've been busy," Naoto answered shortly. If it were a normal hour, his friend wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. He certainly wouldn't have pursued the matter when he heard Naoto's terse voice. From the uneven brushes of breath against his cheeks, he knew Ishikawa had not taken his hint. Angered, with daggers driving into his chest, he grabbed for the nearest limb and held the other boy's hand in a crushing grip. A soft noise of discontent, bordering on a whimper, escaped his lips. "Look, I don't ask _you_ about why _your_ family never visits. Leave it, Ishikawa; I'm not in the mood for your shit."

He made a small sound of agreement and yanked his arm away until Naoto released it with a shove that almost sent the boy tumbling off the tiny bed. If he focused hard enough into the darkness he could make out his friend's features, but he didn't want to see his face anymore. It was pitiful no doubt; the sort of adorable face Naoto almost enjoyed _more_ than a cheerful smile. And while he would have loved to take his aggressions a step further, perhaps make the boy squirm a little more, realistically Naoto knew to keep his hands to himself.

Somehow, like a reprimanded dog, Ishikawa came crawling back anyways. He was cautious, inching closer, coming into contact for a brief moment before pulling away and repeating until he knew Naoto would not shove him away. He came so close that their knees and shins collided, their breaths intermingled, and the flat surface of the other boy's belly was mere centimeters away. Naoto brushed his fingertips along the curve of his hip, and suddenly blood pounded in his ears. He could feel his heart leap into his throat and back into his stomach.

The boy's hands came to rest just short of Naoto's chest below the collarbone. A fear so irrational he wanted to laugh at it emerged from his subconscious. For a moment he genuinely believed that Ishikawa might sense his beating heart and call him out on it. It was such a strange concept that Naoto acted upon the sudden urge to seize the boy's hand and shove it against his chest above his pounding heart, just to prove that he could not notice the difference. The jolt beneath his grip notified him of his friend's startled reaction. His hand tensed and relaxed a moment later when the shock had passed, fingers falling against the bare skin above the shirt collar.

The sentimental message behind the action hadn't gone unnoticed, though Naoto had not intended it as such. Ishikawa breathed a loose sigh and shifted the last few centimeters between them to press his head against Naoto, at the space right underneath his chin. Fine puffs of air tickled the hollow of his throat even though they were about the same height. Ishikawa's feet would probably hang off the edge if his legs weren't bent, Naoto thought in a moment of amusement.

For a long while, Naoto's head remained empty of his previous mindset. The autumn winds whistled outside; the branches of the fir tree battered the hospital's siding. These were sounds and images he could imagine for a time.

Eventually, as they were both drifting asleep with the sheets crumpled underneath them, the door slid to a near silent open. Naoto squinted through the darkness at the flush of light beyond, knowing that the figure silhouetted in the doorway was Hitomi come to shuffle Ishikawa back to his room. He shut his eyes again and squeezed his friend's hand still up against his chest. To his utter amazement, the door closed on the gaping hole of light until a thin sliver was all that remained to cut through the darkness. He hadn't the mind the process anything except for the fact that there was someone _warm_ next to him.

For the first time in a very, very long time- and looking back on it, he wasn't sure if it had ever happened before- Naoto dropped his pride, his inhibitions, and fell into a soft blanket of security and companionship. It was strange in a way. Normal people did not create such fantastic images of platonic friends and subsequently sleep with them in such a platonic manner. But the matter of the fact was that during that night and the many nights that followed it, Naoto felt no desire to touch his friend in the same manner he'd touched his little brother.

He fell asleep the familiar sounds outside his window, the air conditioning's low hum, and new, quiet signs of another human being.

"_In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount._" (Haruki Murakami)

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><p>• I'm aware that you shouldn't end every chapter with sleeping. Nor should you start every chapter with waking up. But keep in mind these were supposed to be a series of journal entries, so they are going to start at one point of the day until the very end. They continue off the other, but are separate stories in essence.<p>

• The book Naoto is quoting from is Osamu Dazai's _No Longer Human/Ningen Shikkaku._ He finds it strange that this book is in the mental hospital because it is about a man who feels detached from society and the depression that plagues him for his entire life, including a suicide attempt. However, it is on the top ten best-selling books in Japan and is very popular with the youth.


	5. Day Five, a day of silence

_**Insanity is Colored White**_

_Day __**Five**_

The mornings were always cold. Japan during this season was still swathed in a humid sort of heat, and anyways the windows were sealed shut and the air conditioning on until winter. Naoto had taken to burrowing beneath the covers while he dozed in the early hours, until hunger and a useless sense of urgency forced him from bed. Today he stirred into consciousness enveloped by warmth that could only be described as "human". For minutes uncounted he kept his eyes closed and savored the tranquility, inwardly afraid that if he opened his eyes the peaceful illusion might disappear.

He narrowed in on the muted activity outside the hospital walls to placate his quickening heartbeat. Birds twittered their nonsensical songs among the treetops and a host of soft footfalls passed his door every so often. Yet there was more to the morning sounds than those simple, isolated noises, and if Naoto had to name the one thing that unified them, he would call it silence. Regardless of its dictionary definition, silence had a special quality that completely devoured its surroundings. A deadly silence or a peaceful silence was more than the mere absence of sound. That was what he heard while still engulfed in a world of his own.

As the dark film behind his eyelids dimmed into the heaviness of sleep again, the crinkle of shifting sheets dawned on him. The warmth in his arms moved and fine hairs prickled his nose and mouth, vaguely uncomfortable after he noticed their presence. While his mind stirred to life his eyes peeled open, blinking wearily into the white and pale yellow of the morning sun. They flickered downwards at the soft, rustled hair of the boy beside him. Their positions had remained relatively stagnant the entire night, and now numb sores began to seep through his side.

He lifted his arm from Ishikawa's shoulder, pushed his torso into an upright position, and started to disentangle their legs. To his amazement, the blankets had remained crumpled beneath them and he woke warmer than ever before. The biting chill of the air conditioner was that of a particularly cold glass of water- half unpleasant, half refreshing. Naoto grumbled and stretched his stiff limbs, careful not to strike his sleepy companion. Ishikawa was not completely asleep if he took a good look, but feigning in order to elongate the lazy minutes free of responsibility and worry.

He was pleasant to look upon all curled up and nestled against the blankets. Naoto shook his head and went for the closet to change for the day. Morning was not a good time to start fantasizing about his friend. Ishikawa was awake and very "sober" during whatever hours the sun was active. As he pulled a shirt over his head, he heard the boy in his bed shuffle and yawn.

"Good morning," Naoto muttered as he returned and flopped down on the thin stretch beside Ishikawa. The boy blinked with mist in his eyes a few times and returned the greeting on instinct. For a time, both of them said nothing, for there was nothing to be said. Just as in the dead of night there were moments in which hundreds of emotions were transmitted across mere centimeters without a single word, sometimes without a single glance, there were moments of the morning hours with the same qualities. At the least there was the gentle emotion of peace and companionship, nothing as desperate as the nighttime version.

At some point Ishikawa leaned against Naoto's shoulder, facing the other direction, and said, "You need a wall to lean on. Why don't you move the bed to the wall?" He had skill at these types of questions, ones which would have angered Naoto if almost anyone else had said them. It took people like Ishikawa to rob those curious statements of judgmental undertones.

"I don't like walls." Naoto lied; he had not cared whether or not his bed rested in the center or edge of the room when he first arrived. After a few months, the thought had never crossed his mind to move it. Like other people, if enclosed with absolutely no escape and high walls all around, Naoto would panic. It didn't make sense to say someone had a phobia of death or serious injury or illness when those were natural fears and extremes in their element. A complex answer to a simplistic question, but Naoto did not fear walls and neither did he enjoy them.

"About last night…I suppose it didn't make much sense. I was…I was out of turn." The faint implication of an apology hung behind his words, but for some reason Ishikawa did not express the sentiment in clear words. That was his pride, Naoto figured, as he likely would have said the same. "I saw what happened outside, but I went back before you did. It was just like you said- odd, stupid. No one, not the insane or the sane, would want to _stay_ here if they had family to return to- family that loves them.

"It just irked me, is all. So I took it out on you," he finished. Naoto reminded himself that they almost never revealed personal secrets or details about their detainment and curbed his indignant desire to know _why_. Instead he graced his friend with a smile and an accepting nod, and kept telling himself that it was not important anyways. Ishikawa had known of his crimes from the minute he opened that mouth of his and perhaps even before that, if Sato had debriefed them on the new arrival. His friend had accepted him with that knowledge.

"It's fine. So, today- what's on the agenda? Besides, you know- the same old things." Naoto leaned down and slipped his feet into his shoes, giving them a brief tap against the floor before he moved around the bed and yanked his friend up by the arm. The clock read seven forty-five. Breakfast ran until eight thirty, nine the latest. Naoto was hungry- another sensation that had remarkably been amplified since meeting Ishikawa. Before, hunger had been an unpleasant feeling and he ate to satisfy that, not caring much for the taste of his food.

It was also amazing how quickly simple pleasures could be stripped away from life- and return in the most unexpected forms.

"I want to draw." Naoto cast his friend a confused glance as they left the room overcast in a soft glow. Ishikawa's lips were tilted into a little smile. From the grin that followed he knew the desire had been a spontaneous one, but that did not make it any less real than a well thought out response. Perhaps those slips of the tongue were much closer to the truth. Ishikawa reached his side in a few long strides and elaborated, "I'm not very good at it, but I've always wanted to try. I've always thought I'd be so bad at it that I never actually tried, but here it doesn't matter so much. Not that your opinion doesn't matter…"

Naoto waved away his concern. "But society doesn't judge you here, and neither will I." While his artistic aptitude had never been developed to its full potential, he had endured twelve years of his little brother's attempts at art. He absorbed all those with good humor and a gentle critical eye. He had no right to judge Ishikawa. He doubted that he could even lend a constructive helping hand with how poorly his skills had been developed. That was to say, Naoto only drew when he grew bored and scrawled little cartoons in the margins of a notebook.

"After breakfast, then," Ishikawa said with a happy note. The staff left the patients well enough alone until after lunch, so there was no shortage of time. The mornings, like the nights, were devoted to whatever activities they decided to pursue. Of course, entertainment was at a minimum this deep into the mountains, but somehow they managed to occupy themselves day after day. Naoto wasn't quite sure how he survived the couple months before he met Ishikawa. When he thought back on those days, he found the images hard to wrap his mind around, always slipping from his grasp just as the images began to clear.

Breakfast was the normal affair in the cafeteria. The noise echoing across the width of the room was more vibrant than the quiet din in the evening. There were smiles on the patients' faces as they moved from table to table, waving greetings here and there. This vitality had flown straight over Naoto's head those first few months, as if the people around him were the afterimages of a particular film, detached from his world by a screen. Now he resumed his effortless smiles and sociability of distant days, forming pleasant enough friendships with people even Ishikawa hadn't known.

The two boys slid into the queue centered on the back wall where they received their food. The menu had undergone few changes in the past two or three years, according to the older patients. There was toast, bagels, cereal, and eggs every other day, a form of meat once a week, and rice if you were so inclined. Fruit accompanied every meal, and to his surprise the staff kept a fairly diverse selection of drinks on hand. The cooking wasn't terrible once he paid attention to the taste. Nothing beat his mother's, but he supposed that it could be worse.

With a pleasant greeting Naoto slid into the seat across from another patient Ishikawa had taken the initiative to introduce to him during a group therapy session. Inoue Daisuke was three years Naoto's senior, and a perfect sempai if he had ever seen one. Those therapy sessions never revealed much more than the bare minimum of anyone's problems, let alone their entire back story that would have been laid bare for the world to see in any other group. As a consequence of the laid back atmosphere, Naoto had no idea as to why Inoue was in the hospital in the first place. He was the most normal of them all.

Ishikawa had him as a roommate, so in one way or another Inoue would become the topic of their discussions at least once a day. He never had impromptu nightmares or bouts of depression, showed no signs of an unhealthy obsession, and traveled quite far out of his way to help anyone he'd taken under his wing. He was human, so he did have selfish tendencies, but he always wore a smile and laughed with an ease Naoto envied. The demons that lurked in the dark closet of his mind seemed completely unattached to him, buried in a world no one else could access.

Inoue tossed a bright orange between his hands for a moment before he began to peel the skin away with deliberate slowness, the tang of citrus seeping into the air. When he lifted his dark eyes, they were tinted with mischief and his usual good humor. "Ishikawa-kun, you didn't come back last night." Inoue had taken the responsibility upon himself to protect those charges rather seriously. Naoto had recently come to fall under that category and found the sentiment somehow unsettling. There was nothing to protect them from in this place. _They _were placed here in order to protect everyone on the _outside_. The only things they had to fear were their minds.

"We didn't do anything; you know they'd never let us," Ishikawa said. Inoue grinned and disposed of the peels on a napkin before rolling the naked fruit in his hands. He was more than skeptic of that answer. Rather, there was a certainty behind his expression that alluded to far more than he would ever say. He cast a glance at Naoto when Ishikawa turned to his food and gave him a look that promised a painful punishment if anything _were_ to happen. Not that Naoto intended on doing _anything_.

He scowled and stood from his seat. In truth, an anxious swell had driven through his stomach and left behind a bad aftertaste. Rationally, Inoue had no possible way of knowing his perverted thoughts when the object of those thoughts was still unaware of them. Naoto knew this, but found that a heavy worry plagued his chest the entire time Inoue stared at him, as if the older boy had a private key to his mind, as if his every breath betrayed his secret. And perhaps that was the nature of secrets, he considered nearly a week later.

That day he gave little to no other thoughts on secrecy and its definition and consequences. Ishikawa had wanted to draw for whatever reason, and it was probably the most constructive activity they were going to accomplish all week. The room with all the stationary was the room where patients wrote their letters and journals, but as of nine in the morning it was empty. Naoto and Ishikawa pulled some supplies together, sat at one of the rectangular desks arranged in two neat lines down the room, and held pencil to paper without a single idea as to what they wanted drawn.

They started by naming objects and animals and having the other person draw them. But after all, drawing was not a very social activity and eventually their work drifted apart and a soft silence overtook them. Pencils scribbled and skimmed over paper, taking shape, making shades, all of those vital components to art. Ishikawa strayed away from people while Naoto took the challenge offered in depicting an expression in the best possible way that his limited skills allowed him. The sketches were neither neat nor beautiful in any way, but he supposed it was an okay result he could live with.

"I don't think I'm very good at this," Ishikawa admitted sometime later as he pushed aside a stack of paper and stretched his arms out over and behind his head. Naoto paused in his work and lifted the sheets with sore, blackened fingers. These were not genius either. They were below average, just a level higher than the attempts his brother had made if he had to grade them. They were kind of childish, with little sense of perspective and proportion, a little too forced. He smiled though, just as he had always smiled for his little brother when he ached for some type of praise from someone in the family.

"You'll get better. All it takes is practice."

"Right, practice," Ishikawa sighed as he slid the sheets into the trash nearby. Naoto made no movement to indicate that he wanted to leave, and his friend gave him an exasperated smile with the very vague implication that he was not amused. This made Naoto frown behind his hand as he twirled a pencil around his fingers. He had done Ishikawa no wrong, yet the boy had given him a look of irritation. It carried the feeling he might get when his mother talked at length about unimportant things he cared nothing for. "See you around."

His friend's back disappeared from view behind the sliding door. Naoto stared at that empty space for awhile, the pencil limp in his fingers until he came to and shook the stupor away. Ishikawa had been in an off mood since this morning. Everyone, Inoue excluded, had their lows and highs, days when the glass was half full and days when the glass was empty altogether. Let him cool his nerves for a little while. Then Naoto would talk to him. He set this resolution in his head to find his friend later and give a listening ear if he wanted one.

That was, after all, one of his only responsibilities. And if Ishikawa didn't want to talk, he could try again tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that. They had an infinite amount of time.

Naoto returned to his drawing and frowned at the shape that had taken form on the surface. The past few had been of his little brother, just simple headshots that wouldn't allow his mind to travel to inappropriate places. Before Ishikawa interrupted his flow, he had been trying someone different, forgetting in the airy mood of the room that the only other person he thought of lately was his friend and in a bad light too. A deep flush of shame rose into his face as he stared at the paper, mortified beyond belief. It didn't matter that no one was around.

How could he have drawn his friend in such suggestive positions? Those were images meant to be confined to his mind, never to be expressed in words or on paper in _any_ form. The worst part was not even that he had drawn them on impulse, but that they stirred the same arousal in him as well. Naoto touched the pictures as if they were burning coals and folded them once, twice, three times before he tossed them at the bottom of the trash bin. Not satisfied with how _easily_ someone could find them, he rearranged the papers until his sat near the bottom.

He'd have to somehow fix that problem without disgusting himself even more and reconsider talking to Ishikawa later. He could _not_ listen to that boy's problems with those images and that shame floating around in his head. True, he was excellent at disguising those types of thoughts already, but that didn't make them right.

Looking back on the situation a week later, he should have ripped them up. At the time the idea hadn't crossed his mind for some unfathomable reason. It might have been because he was ultimately proud of his work and if someone found them intact, at least they had artistic qualities and weren't porn. It also could have been that no matter how wrong they were, those drawings were of his friend and he couldn't take it upon himself to rip them up. Whatever the reason, Naoto considered nothing of the person he passed in the hallway on the way back to his room, inwardly still embarrassed.

He was so stupid to even have waved at Inoue considering what troubles he had in Tachikawa after that.

"_Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt._" (Haruki Murakami)

* * *

><p>• I tried to leave a little plot in here. Because this story needs plot. Seriously, it's so unconnected until the end as far as I have planned. White pedal gave me the idea for the drawings. :) And from it, a new plot was born.<p>

• So, thoughts on Inoue? Any guesses as to why he's in here?


	6. Day Six, a day of betrayal

**_Insanity is Colored White_**

_Day __**Six**_

Perhaps he had been calling Tachikawa by the wrong name all these months. 'Hospital' was a nice euphemism people gave to a sanatorium, but in reality the establishment was an extended dormitory. There were offices and exam rooms, medicine and doctors, but the place was not really a hospital. Patients didn't fall ill from an outbreak of the common cold in hospitals. He was sure that everyone would have heard of it if something like that did happen. The proper ones were clean and sterile and while Tachikawa was very clean and neat, organized to the point of insanity even, it lacked that tinge of bleach in the air hospitals had.

Naoto would know; he had never forgotten that dizzying, subtle scent that tainted every corner of the room, every hallway he walked. Tachikawa smelled of freshly washed sheets with undertones of whatever flowery scent the caretakers decided for the week. The cafeteria carried real, warm food scents down the adjoining hallways that suspiciously reminded him of home. Still, these were sensations he had not noticed until he stopped to ponder them for an afternoon. The outbreak had come at somewhat of a shock to him before he had time to rationalize the event in his head.

His friend simply professed that this happened sometimes when new patients or family members carried bugs and viral strains into the building. It bothered the harried staff more than the sick, for in some strange sense that vulnerability reminded them that they were still alive and society might not be so distant after all. Ishikawa acted nonchalant, as if he were one of those unconcerned with falling ill for a few days. This was a phase that it would pass within a week or two, and a month from now the memory would be buried so deeply in monotony that it would become a distant past.

For Naoto, the situation was not so simple. Hitomi had expressed her concern the minute the staff concluded that they had a problem, requesting that he simply not leave his room or interact with the others much for the duration of the strain. Of course, this was in his best interests and health, as the institution was not equipped to treat his heart condition should something go horribly wrong. A simple cold had not plunged him into that bad a relapse for quite a few years, but then again his previous life had been filled with vitality and activity, which warded off the worst of his condition.

Impatient and frustrated as he felt pacing the small confines of his room, Naoto obeyed, even when Ishikawa had fallen ill and he ached to speak with his friend again. The change in his physical state was now painfully apparent if he concentrated. He doubted that he could run a mile without serious breathing and circulation problems. The knowledge of this loss and the memory of a time when a mile had been effortless if he minded his limitations devoured him inside. There was little else to ponder while he waited, reading books and coursework to improve his mind, even if the impact was slight.

The broad-leafed fir outside his window moaned in the October wind. Its fine tips battered the siding, cast shadows over the room. Another novel lay limp between his fingers, some insignificant work from some English-speaking country. It was not a classic and rather shallow if he stopped to decipher the text. Hitomi had gathered whatever she could during a break for him, so he was not about to complain. The laughable situations distracted him well enough, kept his tingling feet from dragging him down the hall to the little civilization outside this room.

That was, until Inoue came knocking at his door one afternoon. The man had remained remarkably healthy despite his constant involvement with the sick, including his roommate. He reassured Naoto that he had washed up before coming here with a smile that was obviously strained at the ends. Trust the man to know even the extent of Naoto's health. Inoue seemed to have distanced himself from Naoto just a little bit, but maybe that was just his deranged mind fooling around with interpretations. After all, he _had_ known about his heart condition and decided to wander down here, although it was upon Ishikawa's request.

"He's over the worst of it, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered coming, but he hasn't been quite himself lately, and the cold's not the cause. I mean, it _is_ because of the cold that he's acting a bit weird, but not because he's sick. Does that make any sense?" For a moment Naoto stared at the older man with an incomprehensible look, until he mulled the words over in his head and realized what Inoue had been trying to say. Maybe he hadn't wanted to say it directly, thinking it was too out-of-place in a conversation between acquaintances.

He nodded in understanding, but hesitated. Until the cold had completely blown over, it was still quite possible that he might catch it. While he did want to alleviate some of his friend's dismal mood, he wasn't quite sure it was a wise idea. Nowadays, Naoto found himself contemplating those thoughts he previously would have brushed away. His every action was under scrutiny and that made him all the more cautious, even under circumstances like this. Unlike Ishikawa, Naoto could no longer be carefree with such dangerous matters.

"I mean, you don't have to come if you're afraid of getting sick. He'll understand." Inoue turned to leave and flashed a brief wave over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hallway, leaving Naoto with a guilty conscious that had just dug itself into a deeper grave. He slumped against the door frame and released a ragged sigh, eyes focused on the silver hinges while he battled with his commitment to his friend and the obvious risk of illness. Not that he was afraid of falling ill. For all he knew, his heart and lungs would be able to hold out just fine.

Ishikawa would without a doubt come knocking at his door the instant he heard the news, worried and smiling that ridiculous grin even if Naoto was in the worst mood imaginable. The older boy was loyal like that, clingy almost to the point of irritation and falling just short of it. He cared and by all means, Naoto cared too. At the moment, it probably seemed like he _could_ care less, and for minutes Naoto tried to convince himself that it was for his own health and Ishikawa would understand.

The problem was that his friend would _say_ he understood while in reality Naoto's distance might pain him inside. Even if he offered a smile, it would be a strained one. He'd start doubting whether Naoto worried over him and in a mental hospital, it was best to avoid these types of insecurities. People had all sorts of triggers and Naoto did not want to discover any of Ishikawa's major ones just yet. With a reluctant sigh that should not have been so easy to exhale, Naoto pushed himself from the frame, closed the door, and headed the way Inoue had come.

The pale surface emitted a coldness that touched Naoto's fingers before his knuckles rapped against the door. Two short knocks later he heard a muffled voice beyond the thick walls able to block out the worst instances of commotion that sometimes broke out. Ishikawa must have had to raise his voice quite high for Naoto to distinguish his faint words. The blockade prevented him from catching any fatigue in his tone. He could not hear the muted footsteps or any other sound for that matter, until Ishikawa had opened the door.

The complexion on his friend's normally healthy face flushed with life was a step short of ashen and despite the bright smile on his lips, his eyes were heavy and reminiscent of the shadows Naoto found at night. Light streamed into the room beyond him, two beds identical to Naoto's on opposite sides of it. In all, it seemed like two students' dorm rooms with an amazingly bland color scheme. Ishikawa welcomed him to it, motioning towards his side where the bed was unmade, sheets tossed and twisted every which way. Two stuffed animals were grouped near the pillow. Naoto couldn't say he remembered them, though he'd been here before.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked as he wandered over. There was a dog and a cat stuffed animal. They were worn objects of affection repaired with string in certain places along the seams. Naoto could not personally remember possessing any such toys, though he strangely recalled having received stuffed animals years ago in the hospital. Maybe he had given them to his little brother. After a point, he had stopped asking their parents for gifts except during holidays when he deemed it alright to be a little selfish. The vague memories brought a small smile to his lips.

Ishikawa misinterpreted his emotion as friendly concern, which was well enough. "I'll be fine. It's just been so _boring_ here. Inoue-san is always out helping others and doesn't feel like talking when he comes back. It's driving me crazy!" He collapsed against the folds of his blankets and exhaled a laugh wrought with undertones of heavy breathing, phlegm still trapped somewhere deep in his lungs. At least he didn't seem "_crazy_" in the true sense of the word. He _was_ obviously overjoyed that Naoto had decided to drop by.

If the clingy eighteen year old attached to his arm was not proof of his deprivation of human contact, Naoto didn't know what was. Ishikawa was not this affectionate under normal circumstances, the nights notwithstanding. Dull nails scraped the underside of his arm, but Naoto resisted the urge to protest knowing that rejection would not improve his friend's mood. Whatever instabilities shifted below his skin were unknown factors, but that did not change the fact that Ishikawa had problems. Just like most in the institution, he never had visitors from home and always spoke of family with fondness in his voice.

That alone indicated something different from the norm. People usually complained about their family while they were still around and remembered only the pleasant memories when they had gone. Though Naoto seemed to be facing an opposite situation, Ishikawa had assured him of this a few times already, unable to realize that he included himself in that generalization. Not that Naoto cared much about his family issues, not to be cruel or anything, but he had enough issues of his own, issues he wasn't quite sure how to handle anymore. It had always been easy to say he had a normal family and that wasn't the case anymore.

"Well, I'm here now. What do you want to do- to talk about? Anything's fine," Naoto said as he tried to make himself comfortable. He kicked the heavy standard issue blankets aside, which Ishikawa grabbed with a fierce scowl. He immersed himself in the bundle and settled down with a contented sigh, pulling one stuffed animal close as he rested against Naoto's shoulder. A pair of compressed dog ears that had long lost their fluff poked out from the crook in his elbow. "Well, how about those? Where'd you get them?"

Ishikawa lifted his head an inch, his dark hair tousled and matted and rather cute on him despite- or perhaps because of- the unkempt appearance. A small smile touched his lips as he held the worn toy up with a delicate fondness. "My sister bought them for me when I was younger for my birthday. Not that my parents forgot, but they don't really believe in giving kids gifts and I'd always been a brat about it. I hated them at first. But she's a girl, so what would she know about giving little boys presents? I've always liked them since I got over it, even though she probably thinks I threw them away a long time ago."

Naoto knew full well that Ishikawa expected an answer. They always reciprocated no matter how tough the subject on their memories and emotions, even if they had to detach themselves from their words. Each time was a struggle, a little step closer to the truth and his brother's taunting image. The more personal these conversations grew, the longer the interval between his responses. Ishikawa waited patiently, humming a pointless little tune under his breath while he absently played around with the animal's lifeless limbs.

"My parents always got me what I wanted, and I didn't have to pull their heartstrings or move them to tears to do it. But they didn't lavish unwanted gifts on my brother, who only got what he wanted during holidays. Maybe it's just because he almost never asked for anything outright. I shared with him a lot of the time." Naoto relaxed as he spoke, easily lapsing into the comfortable atmosphere entangled between the two boys when they shared details of any personal matter. The knowledge that all this was a lifetime away helped.

"You don't seem like you're a brat now," Naoto added after a few moments had flown by. This elicited an amused chuckle from his friend, his thin form sending slight trembles through Naoto's arm as he caught his breath. Ishikawa _did_ whine about certain things, like when boredom or the monotony of their days had caught up to him, but it was near impossible for Naoto to imagine the boy giving his parents grief over material objects. Ishikawa could be selfish, he supposed, when he really wanted something. Perhaps that was a toned down result of his childhood personality.

"Oh, I was, trust me. It's a little different here. It stopped mattering to me; I could care less about it," Ishikawa said. Underneath the dismissive tone Naoto detected almost bitter humor, contained in a single note held for one second too long. That single note peeled away every layer of protective cover his friend had painstakingly erected until Naoto had a view of his heart. Maybe his vision was not quite clear and translucent yet, but it was a start. There was vulnerability there, a scared and lonesome teenager huddled somewhere nearly forgotten and concealed.

They pretended, because that was all they _could _do. Unless something in their mentalities underwent a radical change, theirs was a life sentence. Naoto managed a small, forced smile Ishikawa was unable to see and wrapped his free arm around the older boy. The embrace squished him between Naoto and the wall so his form was rather tiny, and he sputtered and squirmed to escape. He enjoyed hugs, but perhaps not when he had such little control in the matter. With a glare and a wavering frown he pulled himself into a more upright position.

"That's better," he said in triumph. Uneasy conversation aside, they returned to whatever could be considered the norm for them. It was always pointless talk, discussions Naoto would never remember except that he had nothing else of importance to occupy his brain capacity. Ishikawa did not lead a terribly interesting life, his obvious tragedy or problem aside, and in truth neither did Naoto. If he excluded his early battles with the hospital and sickness, his issues with his brother and school, his life was not one worthy of a novel.

If his athlete friends saw him now, conversing with a sick boy a year his senior with a child's mentality, they might collapse with laughter. Not that Naoto had been particularly cruel to nonathletic students prior to those incidents in high school, but he had never really paid that group much attention either. His friends would never believe him. They would tease Ishikawa mercilessly if they ever discovered his vulnerable side, the person Naoto truly wanted to know and had the privilege of touching on occasion. Seniority was negligible; Ishikawa would be considered weak.

"What's wrong?"

Naoto snapped away from his reverie, Ishikawa's dark eyes aligned with his own. Those were eyes he knew saw into his heart and mind the same way he sometimes found that trembling core beyond the other boy's layers. There was no lying in their relationship. If they wanted to speak, they would speak the truth. If they didn't want to share, they would keep silent. And Naoto found his mouth betraying him in more ways than one.

"Just…my friends haven't asked about me at all. They've never called my parents about me. I have no idea what they're up to now." _And it bothers me _he thought when words had ceased to leave his throat. Ishikawa gave him a sad, sympathetic smile, dull pain in his eyes. Maybe it was a reflection of Naoto's own emotions, the ones he was unable to express. Maybe that was simply Ishikawa's pain alone, the pain of the family that never visited or called. In the beginning of their tentative relationship, he had accidently inquired about Ishikawa's family. His friend had said that they were busy.

He wondered if that was a lie or not. At the time, he had been unable to read Ishikawa's emotions like an open book and could not recall with exact clarity the expression on his face or his mannerisms that day. They had agreed never to lie, but Naoto would not begrudge him if he hadn't been truthful. They all had their demons they would rather not dredge from the closet, and it had been his fault for asking. The trust between them was otherwise real and untarnished. They still fully understood each other.

"You have us. I know it's not great; you're stuck with me because of therapy. I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I like to think it's more than that. Out of all of us here, there's only a few whose family and friends visit every now and again…I don't mean you should forget about them, but we're all kind of like family now, aren't we? At least, that's how I see it." Ishikawa had released Naoto from his relaxed embrace and shifted away slightly. His dark hair obscured his face. "I don't like thinking about that too often- about how long I've been here, how long I'll _be_ here."

"Ah, I…I don't mind. I wouldn't have kept sticking around if I didn't like you," Naoto said imploringly as he tried returning them to their original state, the _peaceful _one where he didn't spoil the situation with his big mouth. Ishikawa allowed Naoto to embrace him again, but was stiff and touchy, shrugging off a hand that strayed too close to his neck. Naoto frowned, displeased with his current mood and insinuation. He considered Ishikawa his friend, but not family. He swallowed a thick lump in his throat unrelated to a cold; having thoughts about another "member" of the family was a bit too much.

At least it was safer when Ishikawa was a friend. This was a different type of love between them, nothing dangerous or sexual. At least, it wasn't supposed to be sexual. Naoto grit his teeth and tightened his hold on Ishikawa to the point of engraving thin crescents into his skin. The pressure elicited a small sound of pain from him, nothing more than a tiny squeak and whimper. His friend's flushed skin beneath his palms stilled to avoid aggravating the wounds and some distant voice asked him to stop.

Naoto didn't quite believe that he meant it. Ishikawa never rejected a hug and never denied him affection. The other boy was about his height, slightly lighter, and actually kind of awkward to embrace. Their body parts did not fall into nice niches and their limbs were bony and long, but somehow this time was alright. And besides, he was kind of adorable with a flushed face and pained grimace. Naoto pressed his lips against Ishikawa's warm forehead sticky with sweat and fever, watched as he shrunk away and twisted, hands fighting their way to his chest and gripping a section of his shirt.

The threat of illness didn't matter so much anymore, not with this trembling body weakened by nature beneath him. He had pushed Ishikawa onto the bed and caught one thin wrist in his hand, watching in amusement as that hand twitched, wrought with spasms in an attempt to free itself. It was a much bigger hand than his little brother's, almost a pain to restrain. The legs pinned underneath his own were surprisingly strong, but not strong enough to convince him that Ishikawa didn't want this.

"Naoto," his friend said.

"You're cute," Naoto breathed against the crook of his neck, his spare fingers tracing the delicate lines of his collarbone. Dark strands of hair tickled Ishikawa's throat. As his pressed his dry lips against that flushed skin, running tongue and teeth against it, Ishikawa froze. His skin was salty, unpleasant but warm and alive, a deep and rapid pulse just under his tongue. "You're not worthless to me, you know that? I like being stuck with you…"

"Naoto, stop it, _right now_," Ishikawa said, his voice rising, shaking, or perhaps it was Naoto who was shaking. "Bad things have happened to you, I know that. Bad things have happened to me, too. Bad things have happened to Inoue and everyone else here, but the whole reason why we're in this hellhole is because we want to get better. You want to see your little brother again, right? If you rape me, they'll stop trusting you, but get this: _I won't._ I-I still think you're a _good_ person, Naoto, a good person who's had bad things happen to him. Do you want that on your shoulders?"

It was his turn to freeze. What had he been _thinking_? He would have been so close to those illusions, those taunting dreams and images. He had worked _so hard_ to resist them, but here he was now bruising his friend and a few minutes short of taking him without his consent. He hadn't even wanted to hug to begin with.

Naoto sat up, did the only thing he _could_ do, and fled.

"_Not long ago I learned from a certain person in considerable detail about the worthlessness of your character. All the same, it is you who have given me strength, you who have put the rainbow of revolution in my breast. It is you who have given an object to my life._" (Osamu Dazai)

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><p>• There is plot. Just putting that out there. This is also the longest chapter yet, yet not much seems to have gotten done. I've been so busy lately, it's what I could manage.<p>

• So there's some more crazy Naoto. As to why he stopped? Well, I would like to believe that it's because he doesn't want to hurt his friend, but that's not the case. In fact, if you haven't already realized, he really _does_ want to hurt Rakuto the same way he hurt Takumi. His desire to make things right and see his little brother again and apologize is overriding that. Plus, how Rakuto handles it probably has something to do with his stopping to consider it in the first place. Maybe. It's just my speculation. Hope I transitioned into his demented mindset alright.

• So, after that, does Rakuto still trust Naoto like he says he does? If he had gone through with it, do you think he would have forgiven Naoto?


	7. Day Seven, a night of unreality

**_Insanity is Colored White_**

_Day __**Seven**_

Rakuto remained in that prone position on his bed until warm watercolors had began seeping into the light canvas in the sky. The golden and autumn red hues were the only indicators of the passage of time from his limited view, the only objects able to bind his being to the reality that had inched upon his unconsciousness. He refused to shift his strained and pulsating eyes until he was certain that Naoto had left long ago and was not inclined to return. It was a strange- almost instinctual in its ferocity- feeling that prevented his limbs from so much as twitching.

The therapists' words resounded in his virtually empty mind; their calming words inched into every fiber of his being and consumed whatever strands of anger had been engrained there. Remaining bitter about everything that displeased him served only to cause him more suffering. If he filtered his thoughts through an unbiased mind, perhaps one day his violent tendencies and irrational outbursts would stop. Then perhaps, if he was a good boy and behaved, someone would come to take him away from here. Those mantras had kept him functioning through the lonely beginning months before Inoue had intruded on his personal space.

Not that befriending others had been a horrible decision, but he distinctly remembered rejecting Inoue's amiable attempts at friendship for a good four months. The older boy had shown an amazing amount of perseverance Rakuto supposed he should extend to Hayama Naoto as well. He had proven more of a handful than his new friend, whose only misdemeanor so far was that act of perversion a few hours earlier. Not that Rakuto was ready to forgive him quite yet. That had been the first time anyone expressed sexual desire of _any_ sort towards him. He had never taken part in that sort of activity before.

His brief, messy fantasies didn't count of course. Any normal teenage boy would have those urges every so often, as much as it embarrassed him with his friend sleeping across the room. But even at that, he experienced those types of dreams and delusions far less frequently than an ordinary boy might, according to the doctors. Revealing that bit of information had been downright mortifying, but at least he learnt that the secluded environment didn't help his hormones any. Fantasies remained mere fantasies because he had never been presented with the chance to act upon them, nor did he have the knowledge to take them further than in the realm of dreams.

The fact remained that the tender skin underneath his jawbone tingled with the long lost sensation of flesh against flesh, and he was willing to bet that his face was still flushed as well. That had been a side of his friend Rakuto had never been privy to before and not one he wanted to confront any time soon. When people or events left such unusual, perturbing feelings after they were long gone, it was not normally a healthy thing. The worst part was that Rakuto had no clue as to what had triggered the reaction, no matter how hard he pondered the words and movements that led up to the incident.

Until he'd figured that out, it was probably in both their interests to stay far away from each other. He doubted Naoto took any pleasure in the aftermath, and _he_ certainly had mixed feeling about it too. Really, Rakuto didn't quite know how to confront the situation, having been contained within these walls for two very long years already. All previous social capabilities- not that he'd really _known_ people before- were gone and replaced by new norms. The doctors and therapists never advised him on how to go about unwanted sexual advances.

They were bound to find out anyways, he tried to comfort himself. Whatever insecurities overcame him would become plain, grade school kanji to them. The hollow guilt that had flashed behind those disturbingly lustful eyes was Naoto's dead giveaway. That was, if Inoue didn't find out first. His friend had some uncanny ability to read people, always knowing when Rakuto preferred silence and when he _looked_ as if he wanted silence when in reality he needed a shoulder to cry on. He had never given an explanation beyond a small, sly smile.

He buried his body beneath the covers and prayed that the day's activities had exhausted Inoue that when he came to bring Rakuto his dinner, he'd just leave it on the desk and collapse himself. That was the painless option and the safest one until Rakuto figured out what to do with these torturous ponderings. He could think about them all night if he wanted, but he couldn't betray Naoto to his other friend just yet, not when he knew exactly how Inoue would react in light of the situation.

When the door creaked open sometime later, when the last tendrils of flaming red were leaking from the sky, Rakuto drifted into a restless sleep. In this sleep, behind the usual muddled confusion and mist, beyond his normal nightmares and the occasional pleasant dream, was a much darker, ravenous monster ready to devour him. It whispered against his ear in a familiar voice that had once held dear memories and laughed and soothed his fears.

For a moment, it had fooled him into retreating into the lazy days and nights, moments when nothing seemed wrong with the world. And then it wrapped engulfing, intangible arms around his torso and whispered that everything was alright. He was not bad, not really, and these things _could_ be fixed in time. This was not the end of his world as he knew it, not until he breathed his last breath. In the dream world there was nothing but air unless he wanted that air to morph into another substance, if he was truly motivated to end his life.

Though its claws etched deep indentations across the tender skin on his neck, the wound was absent of blood. Its breath was foul as its once sweet whispers morphed into harsh, gritty murmurs, and a deep pain seized his chest. And as he pleaded with the creature- the thing that had once been kind and benevolent- he realized that perhaps everything was not alright after all. People didn't forget injuries so easily, certainly not when their innocence had been ripped away from them by people they could trust. And if this was what they felt in those moments- vulnerable, frozen in betrayal and shock and a deep lingering sense of love for the person they once knew- perhaps becoming _good_ again was merely a lie.

Darkened splotches flashed before his eyes, though he could not recall the dreamscape beholding any light source before. The breath from his throat eased its way out until a thin stream was all that remained, the claws around his neck and torso warm and icy cold. It said nothing distinguishable and he could not see its eyes, though he was certain that they were clouded in some sinful emotion. The feelings leaked into his body thinner than air, and soon he felt light, almost deliriously happy in his lack of oxygen.

_Such things always had to end_.

Naoto woke when his head collided with the solid wooden floors, acute pain flaring through his skull, down his spine, and in his limbs tingling from slumber. The breath had been knocked clean from his lungs, which began to feel inexplicably heavy as he inhaled desperate gulps of air. The blurriness in his eyes dissipated to reveal a room much darker than how he'd left it. The thin, watery sheet of moonlight filtering through the curtains wavered over half his torso, a slight source of discomfort for his eyes. Perhaps he _should_ consider moving the bed against the far wall.

He winced as thoughts returned to his friend. He had fallen asleep to avoid him, fully convinced that his nightmares would never encompass anyone besides his brother, and had once again been proven wrong. Actually, while clinging to the scattering strings left behind, he realized that he didn't quite know _who_ his dream had featured. The details were fuzzy of course, but he had a feeling that neither boy had been the sole participant. This dream had made him much more animated than the others; normally he woke disturbed, but calm.

Lifting his body off the ground, Naoto struggled back to bed and flipped onto his back with a heavy sigh that drifted off into the empty air. It was so ironic, he thought, that in school he'd never had these intense troubles with friends no matter how out of hand his urges were. All but the last of those victims avoided him like the plague, though he doubted the boy would have told anyone if another student hadn't caught them in the act. Every other relationship he maintained in high school was decent, no matter how illusory it was.

Rakuto had never been to high school, so he supposed that might have played a role in it. In all truthfulness, Naoto expected the boy to strangulate the ties between them and reveal every wrongdoing of his at the next therapy session available. That hadn't happened. As promised, Rakuto had kept the event a secret for as long as possible, going as far as to maintain airs of composure during Sato's group talks. That had been the virtual end of all contact between them, however.

His friend had been avoiding him. To the outside eye there was no suitable reason for it, but to Naoto everything made painful sense. Neither boy tried to initiate contact for any reason, except in the separate worlds in the big conference rooms below. The sudden indefinite suspension of human contact plunged him back into that deep loneliness and boredom that laced his earlier days here. The difference was his newfound knowledge of just how much having another person there to listen and cry and laugh with made him happy.

Naoto closed his eyes a few times to test his vision- and each time he conjured another familiar, dreadful face to replace the absent one on the creature. When he'd seen enough to make him physically ill, he kept his eyes wide open despite the sharp pinpricks behind them and the natural urge to slip back into sleep. A hand inched across his torso to the opposite arm and clenched the bruised, discolored flesh there. Dull throbbing pain warmed his arm until thin teardrops laced his eyelashes. Satisfied that the sensation would last, he released himself.

Every night since then found Naoto in similar situations, unable to sleep soundly or even close his eyes without dark images flickering before his eyes. During the day he tried erasing his worries from his mind by reading whatever books the library offered, cheap smutty romance novels included. _Wuthering Heights_ might have captured his attention for two days, but his thoughts always wandered back into the dark. Books were only a temporary cure for his affliction- if it could be called such. Maybe if he actually confronted Rakuto about it, they wouldn't be stuck in this limbo.

But no matter how many scenarios played in his mind, he always asked for forgiveness he hadn't earned and did not deserve, and knew he couldn't face Rakuto quite yet. Not that the other boy made any attempts to resolve the tension- and Naoto saw clear as day that Rakuto _did_ immerse himself in similar ponderings. Perhaps they both had no idea how to bring the topic up without their friendship shattering even more. This was a helplessness Naoto had never experienced before, a complete lack of appropriate words he was certain his little brother faced every day.

To his utter horror, when Inoue angrily confronted him a few days previous, deep irony and karma had decided to make him suffer his brother's affliction. His mind was still unable to conjure useful words despite the constant thoughts on the subject. Nothing seemed adequate enough an explanation, and he couldn't even muster up an excuse to present his case. They never lied in their relationship; the mere thought was absurd.

Inoue had caught him the day following the incident in the empty library where he sought to distract his muddled brain by reading _One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest._ To his amusement, the novel was perhaps the worst selection a mental hospital could carry, which probably meant that whoever collected and catalogued these books hadn't read every single one. The classic's complexity had succeeded in momentarily stunting his swelling emotions so well that he didn't notice Inoue's entrance until feet stopped beside him and a hand yanked the book from his open fingers without a word.

Naoto stared at the older boy in concerned confusion for a moment, his mind presently returning to reality as he wondered what the upset, _furious_ expression on his face meant. Inoue was famous for never losing his temper or his sense of normalcy, according to the other patients. The curiosity served to fuel the other's already brewing anger and he roughly pulled him to unsteady feet by the shirt collar, shoving him against the bookshelf behind him with a force Naoto was quite unused to experiencing. The novel had been discarded into another far-off corner.

"Inoue-san, what's-"

"Don't you _fucking_ start," the older boy snarled. Naoto's eyes widened; a split second later a hand flew at his face, blunt nails striking shallow burns into his cheek. On reflex he grabbed for Inoue's limbs and struggled to push his assailant away, a tingle of fear and heavy guilt running through his chest. He had been stupid to forget. For the hour or two he escaped into the literary world, all other concerns had washed from his mind. He gasped and stumbled as Inoue shoved him into the corner between the shelves and the wall, stray books tumbling from their places.

"Do you have _any_ idea of what you've done? Of course not, because you don't know Rakuto at _all_. What kind of friend just decides to rape you, huh? Do us all a favor and _don't_ fuck around with everyone. We don't need that crap here." Inoue had viciously grabbed Naoto by his upper arms, which was ironically similar to how Naoto used to seize his younger brother when he was angry. With a final curse Inoue threw him away and stalked from the library, not sparing him a single backward glance.

_I didn't mean to, really I didn't. It just…happens sometimes. I didn't want to hurt him. I still want to be friends,_ was what Naoto desperately wished to shout after the older boy. The silence that followed the one-sided conversation crushed all will to protest, nullified any argument he might have made because it was very much a lie and Naoto did not lie to Ishikawa. He _had_ wanted to hurt him. He had wanted to make the boy bleed and writhe and scream beneath him, and from past experience he knew that a large part of him would have enjoyed it.

Above all, the matter that plagued him days after the event occurred, came down to the fact that he did not deserve any amount of forgiveness. He didn't deserve such a loyal and devoted friend if his side of the relationship was entirely selfish and destructive. Maybe he hadn't been able to control himself, but he had enough sense to know that no other person would ever accept that excuse.

When he opened his eyes, the creature with the wide toothy grin and its sweet, deceptive words was shrouded in the shadows of a corner across his room. Its eyes glinted in thin sheet of moonlight that had feebly begun to touch the inky blackness there. And for the first time in many years, tears dripped down his pale face drawn in an assortment of ugly emotions gathered from days and years of lies and sins.

"_There are symbolic dreams- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities- realities that symbolize a dream._" (Haruki Murakami)

* * *

><p>• This one starts out a little differently, featuring Rakuto's point of view a little bit. Really, this is a small chapter in which there are very lengthy discussions on characters' feelings- and I'm not wholly satisfied. It doesn't really seem too appealing, more angst and drabble material. But, I'm super busy with school and after rewriting this once, I just decided to go with it. Take it as you will. The only part I really like here is that dream. Whose is it? Rakuto's? Naoto's?<p> 


	8. Day Eight, a day of words

**_Insanity is Colored White_**

_Day__** Eight**_

Fingers pressed against the cold, tangible glass until the nerves began to numb and sensation crawled away, then lifted and allowed blood to flush the tips before returning. The pallid outline of the ghostly figure beyond the panes, floating contentedly above the ground, tilted his mouth into a grim little smirk. Eyes glinted with the sheen of obsidian, the same but wholly different glare that belonged to the shadowy creature that plagued his nights. Behind him, Hitomi rustled about the room without a word, having given up on conversation when he showed no signs of wanting human company.

That was a lie. He wanted so badly to talk, but knew the words that would escape his mouth were filthy, pleading things that would incriminate him. Should he utter so much as a syllable, the entire story would be exposed in a heartbeat. The fading image of his little brother, no matter how sensual or plainly happy, locked away his speech. Someday they would allow him to speak with him again, even if it was only a hello or meaningless small talk. He should be grateful that Ishikawa hadn't told anyone about that day, and that solitude was the only consequence.

The bruising from Inoue's assault had faded, but the man's calm and considerate face had drifted away until Naoto could no longer quite recall what it looked like. When he tried to drag the kindness the older man had shown him in their first meetings to the forefront of his memories, it slipped into that angry, protective snarl as easily as a bar of soap might slip from his fingers. He had not attempted any such confrontation since and Naoto concerned himself with ignoring the man altogether. He had a right to be angry. That was what normal people did for the ones they cared about.

"_You haven't learned anything at all,_" the ghost whispered gleefully, its lips unmoving except to tilt into another smirk. An amused, jovial tone hid behind the quiet laughter. Naoto gave it a jerky, instinctual nod that it mirrored with suddenly weary, dulled eyes. He wasn't a slow student; he had always won top grades and was very bright, but somehow he never really learned well. Of course he could solve any math problem the teachers confronted him with so long as he had been taught the methods, and philosophy and literature yielded thoughtful, critical opinions from him. In that sense he was very bright.

Outside of lessons almost everyone found him excellent at a variety of sports and most would have described Hayama Naoto as a kind, intelligent young man. He understood the types of smiles and compliments that pleased people and had become completely efficient at twisting his words into sweetened honey that nearly anyone would be hard pressed to ignore.

He never told the therapists about the ghost or the creature. Not in detail, anyways- the night creature had become a terrifying apparition he had to give some explanation for- but the ghost remained his. He never talked back to it and besides the odd mannerisms and glowering eyes, it was his mirror image. He wasn't so crazy that he had begun talking to nonexistent entities. It could mock and tease him all it wanted, but at the end of each day he sternly reminded it that it wasn't real in any sense of the word, before the night creature replaced its image.

Naoto shivered and tore his eyes and fingers away from the window, firmly drawing the curtains shut. No sense in torturing himself needlessly, he figured. He lifted the battered novel from his sheets and lazily immersed himself in another world, one perhaps more chaotic than his own. It lacked the luster and philosophy that _Crime and Punishment_ supposedly contained, but Hitomi hadn't allowed him to read that one. He again wondered why such books were in the hospital if the patients weren't allowed to read them and the staff had no time to devote to leisure.

The loneliness the book between his thin fingers spoke of made him reflect bitterly upon his own loneliness. The days were much too quiet. The occasional battering of the wind from outside, shouts down the hallway, and the gentle folding of yellowed pages filled the quiet of his air conditioned room. These were lonely sounds in literature and in life, depressing on the spirit and empty of heat. Apparitions were figurative devices wielded by many greats, as well. The descent into madness or any form of despair accompanied by such symbols and motifs were the foundations of works from Poe.

Naoto spoke with Hitomi for short periods at a time, but uttered little else except for the nightmares and nightly terrors that visited him. Words swam before his eyes, but those were not enough, and he felt inexplicably deprived of language for a horrible, nauseating moment. There had been afternoons when his friends playfully told him to shut up and hours when his voice was all that consumed the air around him and Ishikawa. Like a bird no longer able to utter a single note, Naoto fluttered about in distress.

That was figuratively, of course. He hardly twitched a muscle for ten minutes afterwards. The reality was inescapable, a grand and smooth wall of silence between him and the people he believed he had cared about. Though, he supposed that he deserved that silence, and that the wall was meant to protect the people on the other side from him. These dreadful, crushing sensations were the ailments his little brother suffered from under his watchful eye and caring façade of an older brother. The nightmares, too, reflected the perverse nature of their past interactions.

Ishikawa and Inoue tormented him in his dreams, though his former friend still flashed weak smiles his way while the older boy ignored him completely. The bitter residue in his mouth returned from the memory, though he was quite sure that he had never tasted it before in reality. His skin crawled as if the darkened, sickened hands of the night creature were tracing patterns over his body. The book fell from his hands, though he didn't feel the object leave and his eyes barely picked the image of the dark cover against the stark white floors.

He had no idea when the standstill ceased. Frozen in time, his mind purged of all thought processes, he only shifted when Hitomi's soft knock against the door startled him from his trance. The movement, the utter disruption, sent tumulus pulsations through his chest that refused to calm. He had no idea where the anxiety originated from, except that it sickened his mind and physical body enough to force him to bed once Hitomi had attempted to ease him from the room and left defeated.

The night crept upon him, clawing with shadowed hands at his body until he collapsed with a shudder against his bed. Ishikawa had been right in that he should reconsider moving his bed. The center of the room was so isolated, so vulnerable. The creature loomed over his thin body with a toothy grin, silently mouthing invisible words as it traced formless fingers around his arms and legs. It was a crushing grip that sent shivers down his spine, but he hadn't any will to scream as it devoured him.

"_Who do you think you are? Attacking the underclassmen like that…_"

Another: "_They didn't have a choice. So cowardly…preying on them like that._"

And another, more familiar one: "_Stop it, Naoto, it hurts! Stop it…No, mom, it wasn't me! He made me do it; why won't you believe me? I didn't want it…!_"

Naoto whimpered, but he did not plead for his mother or father. He had long since stopped seeking either of them for anything related to emotional comfort, even before he had entered these walls. It hurt, and this was his reaction to the pain; it was as simple as that. He was not crying out for anyone anymore, nor was he pleading to anyone for forgiveness from his sins. He was not even begging for the pain to cease, though he by no means enjoyed any part of his nightly torment.

The only solace he had was that this was redemption or a form of redemption. All he could do was to suffer through the pain and survive its onslaught for as long as humanly possible, but he could never become accustomed to it, least of all grow fond of it. His little brother probably wouldn't want that, and he probably wanted revenge. Or perhaps he wanted normalcy. If that were true, Naoto should have to suffer anyways, far away in the mountains where only God could witness it.

A twinge of pain crossed his features as he carefully bit into the white sheets to stifle the scream that wanted to erupt from his throat. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as he tried to bury his shame and despair in the pillow, as far away from the creature's clingy claws as possible. It might have breathed discernible words in his ears, but Naoto wasn't able to hear anything from his room in the cold hospital. In his other world the sun kissed his cheeks and he had the freedom to run once more, and the freedom of choice was entirely his.

How many times had he stared emptily into that sky, ungrateful for the simple blessing spread over every spare inch of his limbs? How many times had he stared into a world of beauty with nothing but impure thoughts? Sometimes he quietly pondered who to choose as his next "victim" and sometimes he tore apart the fibers of his mind in search of a reason to his sinful actions. Acceptance had never been his to own, acceptance for his space in life or the actions he or others took. There was always a "why" and a "how", no matter how hard the answer was to find.

He peered into the darkness and breathed a shuddering sigh, utterly exhausted from remaining captive in his room for the entire day and the past week. The few times he shared the bed with Ishikawa seeped back into his memories. The warmth of another human being, the benevolent warmth of blood and flesh, was as sinful as it was blissful. The simple, complex life fluttering beneath his fingertips had entranced him. He had never wanted to hurt either of them, but somehow the urge overcame him time and time again.

He wrote in the journal provided by the institute with fervor akin to the pace of man set aflame. When he finished a book and had no mind to delve into another fantasy world, he picked up the black pen and wrote and wrote. Oftentimes he had no idea what he had recorded until he reread the page, and it usually made no sense. He would shred these pages from the spine or ink in the bad paragraphs, sometimes so furious for no good reason that he would tear into the pages with the pen's blunt tip.

Writing, somehow, eased the pain he endured. It was as if he were confiding in a friend who would never rebuke him with vicious comments, but revealed his flaws without hesitation in his own words. Speaking in therapy never helped and the doctors were reluctant to prescribe him drugs, so writing became the only way he could have some semblance of peace at night and in the mirror. Concentrating on his handwriting and remembering each stroke to a character without a dictionary's aid were beneficial, too.

The weeks flitted by (like a dream), until December was already upon them and the institute was in the middle of Christmas and New Years' preparations. Holidays here were often without gifts, as Hitomi explained one cold, blue afternoon. The decorations and parties complete with foods they normally didn't have could hardly compensate for a family, but lifted peoples' spirits. They were able to become part of the holiday hype, enough that their various ailments dampened. It was a happy time, all in all.

She also inconspicuously mentioned that Ishikawa's birthday was on the first week of the month: the fifth of December.

Naoto pondered the information for two days before he took action. As she left the room, he dared to consider not doing anything at all, but quickly eradicated the thought. If he didn't make amends with Ishikawa now, he would never again have the same chance. He had to execute this properly. This, he realized next, was a more difficult task than it sounded. He had no resources at his disposal except for a telephone, paper, and Hitomi. Although his smiles and expressions made the girls enamored, Ishikawa saw straight past that.

And Naoto would never dream of being corny or cliché, not in a million years. Though he had to compromise, he soon realized. He had nothing except for a card and his emotions and body. Ishikawa would want none of those (he wasn't sure how he could give away emotions, anyways), and so found himself back at the beginning. It was an extremely pleasurable distraction from his weeks of gloom; the monster receded from his nights and his reflection stopped speaking.

As he shuffled through his meager belongings, his fingertips touched pieces of paper that burned. Naoto's eyes widened, and he physically fell on his rump with his hand hovering in midair. He had been banned from looking at those pictures for so long that he had forgotten he had them, though he never ever forgot the person they depicted. As he crawled closer he had to restrain himself in more ways than one. His chest was uncomfortable and his hand trembled. As he plucked them from the gaps between old books he had read already, a tentative idea began to form.

It was torturous to execute this plan, however. It meant sacrificing something precious to him, the last precious thing he had left in this world. But if it meant that he regained a companion and banished that loneliness, maybe it was worth it. It wasn't as if he were about to burn the photos, and hopefully, Ishikawa wouldn't tear them to shreds.

It took him about an hour to slide the pictures in with the crude card he had crafted him his many hours of spare time. It took another hour to gather the courage to step outside his room and find Ishikawa. By pure chance, he spent another half an hour trying to locate him, only to end his search at the door where the nightmares had started. He asked around and made sure that Inoue was in a therapy session – a long therapy session that had just started – before he came here. Finally, he could delay it no longer.

He knocked and held his breath until he was sure he began seeing blurs and fuzz. The impersonal door opened, revealing his friend's face as normal, as if hardly affected by their distance. Of course, he thought, Ishikawa survived years before I came here. He seemed surprised to see Naoto, though neither in a pleasant nor unpleasant way. He considered all parts of this picture before him – Naoto's bowed head, hunched shoulders, the way one fist clenched and the other delicately held a white envelope. He invited him inside with as few words as possible, and firmly closed the door.

"Please accept this. I'll understand if you won't, but it contains all of the emotions I couldn't get across to you in these past months. If nothing else, maybe it will answer some questions you have, and maybe it won't." Naoto had bowed deeply at his waist in a manner he was completely unaccustomed towards. Prostrating himself before someone, especially if that person had a right to be displeased with him, was perhaps one of the worst experiences his old self could have gone through. And he made sure that he held his torso there even as his muscles ached.

"…Please get up, Naoto." At Ishikawa's mumbled command, Naoto slowly straightened to find that his face seemed uncomfortable and displeased. He had expected any amount of malice or at least a smug demeanor, but Ishikawa had none of that. The older boy accepted the white envelope and stared at it for a long time, finally peeling away the fold with a finger. As he pulled the card out, the pictures fluttered to the floor, all three of them. Ishikawa's eyes widened when he saw the image printed on the one that had fallen face up.

It was all written on the card.

"_Ishikawa-san,_

_Congratulations, it's your birthday. Although I haven't known you very long, and these past few months we haven't seen each other at all, I don't think I've ever been able to have such a sincere friend. It's irony at its best that all the people I considered my friends when I was 'free' could truly matter less to me. Now that I have lost them, I feel as if I really hadn't gained anything in the first place, and can't bring myself to be bothered._

_To no longer have a friend like you, however, is something that has become unbearable without my consent. I'm a selfish person, so I can't just let it go even when reason tells me that it's better for the both of us if I move on. I won't ask you to forgive me and I shouldn't expect us to remain friends._

_My teachers have said that I'm good with words, like how they've said that I'm a natural with sports and almost always had perfect grades. I know, now, that I am good with words but bad with my emotions. Expressing them, I mean, is hard for me. I'm not sure about my feelings myself, in my head. So I don't know how to explain this to you in words, and it's not an emotion I can give to you. But I had this urge._

_Please take those pictures and do with them as you'd like. They are very precious to me, the pictures of my little brother, but the therapists said that I can no longer look at them. Still, knowing that they were there in my room comforted me. I'd like you to take them. I can't offer you an explanation of this feeling, but it seemed like the right decision._

_I formally, sincerely apologize,_

_ Hayama Naoto"_

The room suspended time and space, erasing all other objects except those of importance. Ishikawa did not move for a long time, and he hardly seemed to breathe. Then he crouched down to scoop up the photos, the letter limp in one hand, and the envelope on the floor. When he stood, he was torn between actions, unable to decide where and how he should respond. Naoto stood there with more patience than he had ever possessed in a single moment of time, willing to wait forever if it meant a favorable outcome.

He, of course, expected no such thing, and had long resolved to leave after the tension intensified past their breaking points. It was unfair that he pushed all responsibility onto Ishikawa, when he was the victim and Naoto the perpetrator, but he had no other method in his repertoire.

Ishikawa gathered the photographs in a neat pile and stepped forward, thin chest breathing heavily as he gathered his composure. He raised his head and fixed Naoto with a surprisingly assertive stare, the clouds behind his eyes for once entirely unreadable. The intensity startled him, but he sensed no ill intentions from the older boy, and forced his body to relax. This boy had the right to do with him as he pleased, he had to remind himself. Even if he tore those pictures to shreds, he should have no right to complain.

"Naoto-kun, if I'm truly that important of a friend to you," Ishikawa started, choosing his words carefully. "If I'm the friend you imagine me to be, then I wouldn't abandon you here. Your former friends were willing to lose all contact with you after you were admitted here, and you say that you can't feel as if they were really good friends after all. So, I think in your own way, you've already found your answer. You can't fool me; I know you want that answer so desperately.

"But you don't need to go to such lengths as this," he said, waving the photos around. "By calling me your most sincere friend, you've already answered your own question. All you needed to do was come and talk. I…I've been here since I was an adolescent, so I'm not very good with relationships either, and so I could never bring myself to confront you, no matter how many times I saw you suffering. But don't think that I was scared of you, because I wasn't. I trusted that you wouldn't make that mistake again.

"So, I think…I think we can move on now. Naoto…?" Ishikawa called out in surprise as he watched his friend's composure crumble to pieces. He found his legs unstable, and he stumbled until he was on the bed, and his almost twenty-twenty vision blurred inexplicably. He didn't realize he was crying until Ishikawa pushed a lump of tissues in his hands and fretted over his shoulder, perhaps too afraid of offending him to touch his shoulder. He sat down next to him, but his words were faint.

Naoto was on the verge of laughing as well as crying; how absurd was it for him to have such an emotional breakdown! Did he really have to be the center of attention, always?

Ishikawa finally found the courage to touch him, wrapping an arm around his broad shoulders, uncertainly muttering comforting phrases under his breath. Naoto leaned into his friend, resting against his side, until he could no longer stand the pent up anxiety that had congealed from the past months' loneliness. Manners and proper behavior be damned, he turned and embraced his friend and cried his eyes out like he hadn't done since he was a child. The comfort of being held had long since become a foreign sensation before he entered these walls.

It was warmth that penetrated the late autumn cold, warmth that lingered in the stagnant air beyond its time, and another emotion he had no words to describe.

"_If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of – that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I feel that encouraging. Do you know what I'm getting at?_" (Haruki Murakami, _Kafka on the Shore_)

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><p>• Finally, an update! And finally, out of the depression! I don't know what I want to say...<p> 


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